Set Forth LinuxRulz
by SapphireShelle91
Summary: So M&M are finally together, but could there be trouble already on the horizon for them? Find out what is going on in Michael's head during book 4 of PD. This fic is a part off my CracKing series, so please read those 3 fics first, thanks.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** So here is the first chapter of _'Set Forth LinuxRulz'_.  
>I hope you will enjoy this fanfic as much as you did the first three in this series.<p>

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><p><strong>Set Forth LinuxRulz<strong>

**Chapter One**

"I'm bored… be entertaining."

"What? You want me to juggle geese or something?"

"That would be a form of entertainment, so yeah, I'll take it."

"Get lost, Lil." I groaned.

"But I'm bored!" Lil whined loudly in my ear, "Fix it."

"Keep whining in my ear like that and I'll fix you, right and good." I warned her and she backed up a little, though I noticed I was now at perfect kicking range from where she was lying on the couch beside me. Fantastic.

"I'm still bored." She said after awhile.

"Only boring people get bored, Lil." I replied and she kicked me, hard, in the shoulder with her bare foot.

I glared over at her before turning, with little enthusiasm, back to my book because annoyingly I was currently banned from using my laptop because of a particular article I had written for _Crackhead_ right before Christmas.

I pulled a face at my book.

Damn traitors and damn Bill Gates!

I was only speaking the truth! Linux is better than Windows and not simply because it easier to get around but also because you don't need to have so many flipping windows open!

Anyway, to cut a very long, tedious and annoying story short, before Christmas I wrote a harmless, but truthful article for my webzine, proclaiming that Windows sucks (which it does) and that I know only use Linux. Which I did, that is until Mom and Dad confiscated my laptop off me.

They thought that in retaliation to losing all my readers and subscribes because they feared the wrath of Bill Gates, I would actually go and pick a fight with the man himself. Which I admit I was tempted to do, since I'm pretty sure he did have something to do with my Webzine malfunctioning before it was shut down, not quite completely, but with the lack of sponsors, I might as well shut it down forever.

And that's basically the story.

I am not impressed, least of all because I lost my laptop because of it, it was the only thing keeping me sane over here at Grandma's and Pop's Condo in Florida.

Why did Mom and Dad decide to NOT go on their Caribbean vacation? If they had gone, they'd never have found out about my article, well not until they got back at least, and then I would still have my laptop to keep myself (and maybe Lil, just so as to keep her from bugging me, like she's been doing for the past three days) entertained. But nope, they're here too and try to make us all play happy family, except we're not very good at it.

Oh, I don't mean like we fight twenty-four/seven and stuff like that, we just like our space, and our space tends to be pretty large and we like to be left alone in it.

Lil is currently invading mine, because she is, as she's been telling me for the past two hours, bored out of her brains.

Surprising, as this might be, Lil being bored doesn't actually happen very often (Thank God!), but when it does… Oh God! 'Groan'.

"I'm not boring!" Lil growled back at me angrily.

"Then stop saying that you're bored then." I replied, trying to remember why I thought that reading '_The __Once __and __Future __King_' was a good idea. I'm honestly not a big reader. I mainly stick to Sci-fi which of course, my grandparents have no idea what that is, so of course have no books of that genre in their condo. Though, they aren't completely lost, they have watched Star Wars. Didn't get the plot, of course, but they still watched it, which for them is impressive.

"Why hasn't she called!" I rolled my eyes to the high heavens at this new string of complaints coming out of my sister's mouth

"Don't roll your eyes," another hard kick to my shoulder, "What? It doesn't bother you that your girlfriend hasn't called you?"

I pulled a face at my book.

Of course it bothered me that she hadn't called and that I couldn't call her because the damn Palace operator wouldn't let either Lil or me through. Oddly they didn't seem to believe that they were actually talking to Mia's best friend and boyfriend. Kinda makes you wonder who else has been calling the palace wanting to talk to Mia, if they wouldn't even let us through, even though we had legit proof we were who we said were. But apparently knowing a Princess since she was six years old isn't enough to actually get you through to talk to her.

"Lil, she's a princess of a country," I started with a sigh, "meaning while she's over in the country that she is one day going to rule," I forced myself not shudder at the thought. Not because I think she'll be a bad ruler or anything, actually I think she'll be great at ruling, it just… you have to be a pretty special guy to be with a ruler and honestly, I'm not that special, pretty average actually, so… I shook myself, "meaning she's going to be real busy while she's over there. You know, getting to know her people and government and stuff like that. Not to mention, there's the whole time zone thing. She's like seven hours in front of us or something."

"Fine, but what about all the e-mails I've sent her."

"Doesn't have DSL." I suggested, because I had been wondering the same thing. Between us I think Lil and I have sent Mia, in the past two weeks, just about fifty e-mails, each… which on Grandma's and Pop's old computer and extremely slow dial-up, that's impressive.

"No excuse." Came Lil's grumbled reply.

I just rolled my eyes at the ceiling both trying, and failing, to get through the first chapter of _'__The __Once __and __Future __King_'.

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><p>"Please tell me that the pair of you did actually get outside today." Mom said when she and Dad had come back with a load of shopping later that afternoon.<p>

"Oh god!" I started as I shielded my eyes from the burning sun.

"It burns!" Lil finished for me shrilly as she ducked behind me as if to hide from the sun's rays.

"Yes, yes, the pair of you are a real couple of comedians." Mum said with a heavy sigh as she handed Lil and me a whole heap of shopping bags.

"What's all this for." I asked in bewilderedly into the bags.

"Well someone has a birthday coming up so…" Mom smiled as I started to panic.

"Who's?" I asked, trying to think which one of my numerous cousins it might be.

"Yours, you moron!" Lil said, kicking me behind my knees.

"Ow!"

"Lilly, please don't kick your brother. Michael," Mom gave me one of her tired looks, "your birthday is tomorrow sweetheart, remember?"

I wanted to say no, that I didn't but that would just get me psychoanalysed, so I just nodded, all the while thinking, haven't I already had my birthday before remembering Duh, new year!

I hate having my birthday right at the beginning of the year, because you aren't yet used to the fact that it is, in fact, a new year, you still think it was last year. Or at least I do.

God, where had the year gone?

"I can't believe he forgot his birthday." I heard Mom lament to Dad as we carried all the stuff inside. I heard dad snort as he muttered back, "Wouldn't be the first time." Before he started to chuckle.

"I can't believe you forgot your birthday either." Lil muttered to me as we set everything we were carrying down in Grandma's kitchen, "I mean, how could you? Our birthdays are the one time of year we actually get decent presents!" which is true. Yeah, you might get presents on each of the eight days of Hanukkah, but they tend to pretty crap, mostly just socks. I swear, I have enough socks to last me several life times.

I don't understand why we can't just have Christmas. I mean, for the rest of the year you would never guess that the parental unit were Jewish and yet they insist that we practice on the eight days and nights of Hanukkah. I mean, it's not like Grandma and Pop would care if we celebrated Christmas. Heck, they might even join in, but no, for some reason, Mom and Dad are determined to practice this one Jewish event of the year. I swear, it just to torture us or something.

Seriously, Lil and I have never gotten a Christmas present in all our lives.

Actually, that's not true; we have gotten a couple, but they were all from the same person.

Mia used to (and still does with Lil) give us Christmas presents. Not because she felt sorry for us, for you know, never having experienced a real Christmas before, but simply because she wanted to. She used to get all excited and happy when she gave them to us and got all flustered when we thanked her.

I still have all the presents, both birthday and Christmas and whatever other gifts that she has ever given me over the years, either on display or tucked away somewhere safe in my room.

I'm honestly not mad or really bothered by the fact that she hasn't called me all this break. I understand that she is busy over there and is probably being worked off her feet by that insane grandmother of hers!

Plus, when I went into this, I knew, even before, that our relationship wouldn't be what others would call normal. And not just because of the three year age gap, but you know, her being a Princess and me being basically lower than nobody, it was going to make this difficult and at times, rough, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to try, that I wasn't going to work with all my might to make this relationship with her work. I want to be with her and by hell; it was going to take a lot to make me stop wanting to be with her.

And I know that to make this relationship work, I have to be you know, understanding, that there will be times that I won't see her for long stretches, or hear from her. That I'll probably have to come second or third (or stone dead last) to royal duties.

I get all that, I understand. So, throwing a fit, like Lil, it isn't going to help. If anything it'll just frustrate me more, so i can't, I just need to accept the status quo and you know, get on with it.

Even though I do miss her, more than anything.

"Michael?"

"Don't mind him, Grandma. He's off in space thinking about he's girlfriend." I shot Lil an evil look, while the rest of my present family stared at me, slacked jaw. Was it really that shocking for me to have a girlfriend? Seriously? Just because it's been like, three years since my last one. Or is it four? And I guess she didn't really count. I don't think we even got past the second "date".

"Since when?" Pop asked in his direct fashion. He actually looked the least surprised and most amused out of all the adults present.

"Since, oh, sixteen days ago." Lil said, sounding smug.

"You've kept count?" I asked her in disbelief.

"Oh and like you haven't." she replied with a snort. I have, actually, but that's completely beside the point. I'm allowed to, my sister isn't.

"But you've been here for fourteen days!" Mom pointed sounding bewildered.

"So," Lil said looking at mom with a shrug, "he asked her, finally," she gave me a hard, annoyed look, "before we came here. At the dance."

I think Dad clicked on to who we were referring to then or maybe when Lil said 'finally' because he was starting to grin. Mom, Pop and Grandma were still completely lost as to the identity of my girlfriend was, which is amusing because they all know Mia and they love her, honestly, more than they love us. Not that I blame them, because in all seriousness, Mia is far easier to love than Lil or me. And yet, she loves me.

Yeah, still trying to get my head around that one. As happy as I am that she does love me, I'm still trying to understand the 'how' or the 'why' of her loving me.

"It's really kind of obvious who he's girlfriend is, if you really think about." Lil was saying with an amused look.

"It is actually." Dad said with a grin, which meant that of course he knew who she was, which of course irritated Mom.

"It wouldn't be that scrawny little, well I say little, because the child doesn't look like she's eaten a decent meal in all of her life, girl who used to follow you around everywhere, would it?" Pop asked unexpectedly.

"Mia?" Mom and Grandma asked at the same time, looking at me with wide eyes. I gave a sheepish nod.

Pop gave this sort of satisfied nod before picking up his paper, muttering something like, "Bout ruddy time."

"You and Mia?" Mom asked in something of daze.

"It honestly not that shocking." Lil said. Mom gave her a dry look.

"I know that, I'm just… surprised, that's all."

"That they took so long to get together, I know, we all are." Lil said with a smirk in my direction.

I just glared back at her.

"Isn't she a princess or something now?" Grandma asked, looking curious. Mom, Dad, Lil and I nodded.

"Of Genovia."

"Never heard of it." Grandma and Pop, behind his paper, replied.

"No one really has. Not until Mia's great reveal last October, barely anyone has heard of it."

"Now everyone knows about it." I added, "for obvious reasons."

"Wonder how they managed to keep it all quiet." Pop said behind his paper.

"What?"

"About the girl. How they managed to keep her existence quiet from the rest of the world. Not an easy thing to do now a days."

We all shrugged, 'cause in truth none of us knew what to say in reply to that because none of us knew the answer. And it wasn't like it was something that any of us were ever going to ask Mia or her mom and dad.

I left the kitchen soon after that; completely embarrassed by my mom's and grandmother's excited chatter over my finally having a girlfriend, and that that girlfriend was in fact Mia.

"You just had to tell them didn't you?" I grumbled at Lil as we made our way to the den, where we had spent most of our day, bored out of our minds.

"They were going to find out soon or later." Lil said with a shrug, "just like the rest of the world will." Yeah and I was trying not to think about that.

"Geez, don't look so worried." Lil said giving my arm a poke, "Mia's like gaga over you, she's not going to give a damn what the rest of the flipping world will say."

"Yeah, but I will."

Lil gave me a funny look.

"Why?"

"Because the rest of the world is going to be comparing me to Prince William! Asking why she is with me instead of, you know, being with him or his brother!"

"You mean, beside the fact that he's like seven years older than her." Lil replied, looking a little deadpanned as she gave Pavlov a shove, so that she could sit down on the couch.

"Lil! Not helping." I grumbled in reply.

"I'm serious, though." Lil said, "I honestly don't get what you're so worried about. You love her and she loves you, end of story. It's as simple as that."

I looked at Lil with a worried grin as I sighed, "No, Lil, it really isn't." before deciding that I would go outside and catch some sun by taking Pavlov for a run. Being cooped up in a familiar but not my own space was doing my head in, making me worry about stuff that I wouldn't normally.

So with a wave to my parents and grandparents, I left the condo with Pavlov at my heels, trying clear the worry and doubt from my head.

We hadn't even been on out "first" official date yet and I was already worried that things were going to fail between us.

Great Positive thinking for the New Year, Moscovitz!

Almost as positive as last year!

Great. Just great!

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So, that was chapter one. Hope you all enjoyed. We'll be spending about five chapters at Michael and Lil's Grandparents condo, but that's ok, they're fun chapters.  
>And yes, I'm already playing up Michael's insecurities of not feeling worthy of Mia... actually I think I started playing them up as early as the last couple of chapters in <strong>'CracKing, the First'<strong>.  
>I sort of want it to a reoccurring thing in these fics, slowly building it up until it "boils" over in book 8 (or pre-book 8). I mean, it must have been biting him for awhile for him to do something as drastic as what he does, going over to Japan to build his robotic arm. I sort of wish Meg had let his insecurities show a little more, but I guess, he would have tried to hide them from Mia or when he was with Mia he just didn't think of them, it's when he's away from her that he does, the feeling slowly eating away at him.<br>Anyway, thanks for reading and you know reviews are much loved.  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Ok, firstly and obviously I am not Meg Cabot. There is a sort 'duh' factor there, but anyway, as you all know I am not Meg, so all characters and themes that are involved in this fic that were in her books are obviously hers, I'm simply borrowing them because I can.  
><strong>References made:<strong> _The Once and Future King _is an Arthurian book written by T., first published in 1958. I personally don't mind it, but I'm a bit of an Arthurian nut. Anyway, I don't see Michael as a huge reader, besides obviously reading Sci-fi and possibly some fantasy, but otherwise, I think he steers clear of most books, so for him to be reading _The Once and Future King_ is in my mind, him at his most bored and desperate for something, anything to do.  
><em>Star Wars<em>, again obviously not mine.  
>And I'm sorry to anyone who is Jewish who is reading this. If I have made any mistakes about Jewish culture, about Hanukkah and so on, I am truly sorry. I am not Jewish and I actually don't know anyone who is, so all my references to Jewish culture and tradition (few as they are in here) all came from the Internet. Hopefully, I haven't made any terrible error and if I have, please let me know and I will fix it immediately<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Well that was a great success!

Just what I've always wanted! To spend my birthday, my eighteenth no less, in Promptcare because of the discovery that my baby sister is allergic to shellfish! If only I had thought to grab Mom's camera! The source of blackmail material from this little incident would be endless.

"Shut up." Lil grumbled as I walked into her room carrying a glass of water and some painkillers. Even though she was completely fine after her allergic reaction scare, she now had an ear-splitting headache. Ear-splitting because she was causing the rest of us to go deaf with all her complaining.

"I haven't even said anything." I said as I handed her the glass and the painkillers.

"Yeah, but you were going to. Like how I did this on purpose or something to mess up your birthday." She snarled defensively back at me.

My eyebrows simply shot to my hairline.

"Being unable to breath due to having an allergic reaction to something is pretty lengthy thing to do to simply mess up someone's birthday, even for you."

"So, you're not mad?"

"That you had an allergic reaction on my birthday? Are you insane? Wait, don't answer that. Of course not, Lil. Why the hell would I be mad at you?"

"Well," she shifted uncomfortably in her bed, "you had that look."

I looked down her blankly.

"What look?"

She rolled her eyes at me.

"The look you get when you're annoyed or angry about something. You sort of shut down and not talk to anyone." This is what happens when you have psychoanalyst for parents, you find yourself psychoanalysing people with no conscious thought that you are in fact doing it.

"Lil," I said softly as I sat down by her feet, trying to get my mind over the fact of how silly she could still be and that really, even though she tries really hard to make you forget this fact, that she still is just a kid. A slightly messed up one at that. I blame the parental unit. "I wasn't mad or annoyed at you, ok. I was worried about you, silly. You gave us a real scare when you start doing your impression of Violet from Willy Wonk's and the Chocolate Factory. Which, by the way, never do that again, I seriously mean that."

"So, not mad."

"Nope."

"Do you want your birthday present?" she asked unexpectedly.

"Um, sure. Though honestly Lil, you really didn't need to get me anything." Lil simply rolled her eyes back at me as she leant of and pulled something out of her bedside cabinet drawer. She then handed it to me, with all seriousness.

It was a rectangle object wrapped, rather impressively (and by impressively, I mean, the amount of tape she used wrapping it) in birthday paper. I turned it slowly over in my hands, trying to guess what it might be.

"Are you going to open it or simply stare at it all night?" Lil complained as she shoved my side with her foot.

"I was just trying to figure out how to do just that. How much tape did you use?"

"Enough."

"Obviously."

I unwrapped it, or more correctly ripped at the taped paper. I finally got through it with scissors that Lil handed to me.

Once it was completely unwrapped and I saw what it was, I looked up at her with a deadpanned expression.

She giggled.

"Well, you are hopeless. I thought that it might help."

"A Dating Guide for Hopeless Guys?" I quoted the title of the book she had given me.

"You need all the help you can get. I mean, it took you over a year to tell Mia how you actually feel about her, God only knows how long it will take to get you both on a date, together." I smacked her over the head with the book.

"Ow! I was only trying to help!" she squealed as I reached out, wrapping my arm around her neck before pressing my closed fist to the top of her head and gave her a well-deserved head noggy.

"OW! Michael STOP! STOP! I'm sorry! I'm SORRY!" she screamed as she tried, in vain, to escape from the torture I was inflicting upon her head. "Look, inside! LOOK INSIDE!"

"Huh?" I let up a little on my grasp on neck and she managed to wiggle away from me, giving me a dirty look all the while.

"Look inside, dumbass!" she growled as she rubbed the stop of her head.

"Of what?"

"The book! Back cover!"

I did as she asked and my mouth dropped almost immediately.

"Where did you get these?" I asked softly as I pulled out what she had so gently tucked inside the back of the book, flicking through them with slight amazement.

"Typical of you not to notice that photos were being taken at each of the dances, which you could later buy from the Photography club." Lil said with a snort. For that was what she had given me, her real present to me, I mean, were photos from both the Cultural Diversity Dance and the Non-Denomination Winter Dance. And even though they were taken by an amateur photographer (someone who still goes to our school), they were actually pretty good photos of Mia and me.

"Thanks Lil." I said as I looked up from them to her with a grin written all over my face.

She actually looked relieved before then, of course, becoming completely embarrassed by the whole thing.

"The only reason I got those for you, was simply to show you how obvious it was to everyone else that you two had something going on between you and…"

"Yeah, yeah, Lil." I said cutting into her embarrassed rant, "I understand. These weren't a present as such as to show me how slow and hopeless I am when it comes to getting with, being with and so on with another person."

"Another person who happens to be my best friend." She warned and I rolled my eyes.

"Right. Anyway, thanks for these." I said as I carefully replaced the photos back into the back cover of book Lil had also given me. "Try and get some sleep, ok." I added when I noticed how restless she still was.

"And if you need anything…" I started but stopped when she death glared me. Rolling my eyes back at her, I quickly add as I moved out her bedroom door, just in case she thought to throw anything at me for being too brotherly towards her, "I'm right down the hall." She didn't but I heard her exasperated sigh as I closed her bedroom door.

As I was heading for my own room, which also served as Pop's unused study, I heard Mom calling for me.

Tucking Lil's present under my arm, I headed in the direction of Mom's call.

"Yeah Mom?" I tuck my head around the den doorway, "What's up?"

She simply beckon me to where she and Dad were sitting on the couch. I walked over to them and for the first time actually noticed the large rectangle box sitting on the coffee table in front of them. It was wrapped in blue and silver wrapping paper with silver envelop stuck to the top of it.

"Couldn't give this to you at lunch, but better late than never." Dad said as Mom handed me the box, which was a reasonable weight as I sat down on the floor by the coffee table.

"Can I open it?" I asked to which both my parents both looked amused.

"No, you have to sit there and stare at it, never to know what lies beneath the wrapping paper."

"Morty, stop teasing him." Mom sighed before smiling encouragingly at me. With a quick grin to them both, I opened my birthday present from them and was met with a cardboard box.

"Open the box." Mom said before I could make any smart-arse comments.

I opened the box and my mouth dropped.

"No way."

"You were saying that your old optima was starting to pack it in, so…" Dad grinned at me as I gently took out my new laptop out of the book.

"How much ram does it have?" I asked before remembering that neither of my parents were exactly what you would call 'techno wise'.

"Instruction Manual." Was all they said in response.

"It's fully charged and ready to go. Operating System already installed. And yes, it's a Linux OS, we made sure of that." Dad said, rolling his eyes at me which I only grinned back at.

"Not that we want to hear any more about that," Mom warned me, "you're still grounded from using your laptop because of that article you wrote, young man."

"But you grounded me from using my optima, you never said anything about grounding me from using this one." I said gesturing at my new laptop

"He's got you there." Dad chuckled; to which Mom simply shot him a dead-panned expression, before she turned back to me.

"This Laptop," she said as she gestured to the laptop in my lap, "is meant purely for college use."

"Then why give it to me now?" I complained. The idea of not being able to use this until fall was a horrifying thought.

"Birthday present." Dad said with a shrug.

"So you were out of ideas as to what to get me for my birthday. You decide to get me a laptop, which I then can't use until I'm in college? That's almost nine months away! The upgrades that I'm going to have to do to get it up to date when I get there are going to be enormous, not to mention time-consuming." I grumbled but I knew that if I kept up with the techno-babble my parents would eventually cave to letting me have this new laptop now.

"Do you promise not to write any more articles that have the possibility of getting you shot because of them?" Mom asked with a sigh, to which, of course, I nodded my head vigorously.

"And that you will use it only for school work purposes." Again I nodded.

"And…"

"Mom!"

"Ruth!"

Dad and I both complained.

"Ruth, I think he gets it." Dad said with a grin and Mom sighed.

"I just want him to be responsible…" She stopped when she saw the looks that both Dad and I were giving her and sighed. "Right, silly me, of course, you will be." She kissed the top my head. As she drew back I could see she was fighting back tears.

"No, don't…"I started.

"I can't believe you're eighteen already. I still remember when you were…"

"Yeah, Mom." I said over her quickly because I could feel my head just about ready to explode from embarrassment.

"Sorry, Sweetheart." Mom said as she ruffled my hair affectionately, "you're just growing up so fast."

I glanced in Dad's direction and we shared a look that clearly read 'Mother's!'.

I was finally allowed to escape a short time after that, heading back to my room with my presents, which is, hands down, are the best ones I've ever received.

I mean, I've received laptops for my birthday in the past, that's nothing new, but they've all been hand-me-downs from Dad. I've never received one that was mine to begin with. Until now.

My face broke once more into a wide, delighted grin.

"Did you get a laptop again?" Lil asked when I past her room and she stuck her head out as I went by.

I showed her my new laptop, that wasn't simply new to me, but completely and utterly new, and grinned even wider at her grumbles of envy.

"You have all the luck with presents." She grumbled up at me, a pout on her lips.

"You can have my old laptop." I promised her and she immediately brighten, because even though it is old… ok, like three years old, it's in top notch condition, with the latest upgrades and so on, so Lil is actually getting a pretty good deal.

We said goodnight to each other and headed for bed.

So overall, I guess, it wasn't such a terrible birthday after all, though…

It would have been even better if she had called.

I looked over the photos Lil had given me with the tiniest of wistful smiles.

I would see her again soon, so her not calling, even on my birthday, isn't really such a big deal.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I'm sorry that this chapter didn't have the phone conversation between Mia and Michael, that's next chappy. I just wanted to write the aftermath of Michael's birthday adn him getting his presents from his family.  
>I hope Lil wasn't too OOC. I wanted a scene between them and her giving him a crappy present that actually concealed his real present, but I think while doing that I made her... too nice? I don't know, lol. I tweaked that bit between them quite a bit.<br>Anyway, hope you enjoyed and please, reviews are loved.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"MICHAEL! PHONE!"

"Ow, for fuck sake, what?" I snarled back at Lil, rubbing one of my ears from where she had brutally yanked my headphones from. And we had actually been getting along these last few days since the birthday incident. Well, when I say getting along, I mean, she's at one end of the house playing on my old laptop while I've been on the other side on my new one. I think Mom and Dad are definitely contemplating confiscating both laptops, since both Lil and I haven't spent basically anytime outside the condo since we first got here.

"Are you deaf?" She grumbled back at me, "I said your name and phone."

"Your point?"

"Someone is on the phone who wants to talk to you." Lil shrieked as if I was demented or something.

"Who?" I asked curiously as I got up off my bedroom floor where I had been sitting playing with my new laptop, for there wasn't any room at Pop's desk for me to sit.

"Go find out yourself, you retard!" Lil snapped as she talked out of spare/my room.

Sighing heavily, I followed her downstairs before veering off for the kitchen where Grandma and Pop's keep their old wall phone.

Still curious and with no idea who was calling, I picked up the phone from where Lil had rested it down upon the kitchen counter. I was pretty sure this was going to be some type of joke that Lil, in her bored state of mind, has come up with to piss me off, because I couldn't think of anyone who could possibly be calling me, not on Grandma's and Pop's landline. My mobile maybe but my friends have all given up trying to call me on that almost the moment I got it, mainly because it is like never on.

"Hello?"

'Michael. It's me.' I almost dropped the phone in surprise at hearing her voice, and at how simply her voice could send these weird sort electric sparks all through my body, making my heart beat fast and my hands grow tingly.

"Mia." I was grinning like an insane person as I spoke her name. She called! She actually called! "How are you?"

'I'm ok.' Though she sounded tired and I could hear nerves in her voice. But before I could ask her what was up, she was rambling a mile a minute. 'Listen, Michael, I can't believe I missed your birthday. I suck. I can't believe how much I suck. I am the most horrible person who ever walked the face of the planet. I should be in jail, like Mel Gibson was.'

As she spoke (or rambled) on and on about how terrible she was, my grin simply got wider and wider until I couldn't help it but crack up laughing. I just couldn't help it. She sounded so hysterical about something so small that it was hilarious.

"Oh, that's all right." I reassured her, once I got a grip on myself again, "I know you're busy over there. And there's the whole time-zone thing, and all." I could hear her frantic breathing beginning to slow down to a normal rate. She had been really worried about missing my birthday. I shook my head in amusement.

Changing the subjected I asked her, "So, how is it? How did your speech go? The one on Genovian TV? Did your crown fall off? I know you were afraid it might." I couldn't help but grin at the memory of how frantic she had looked at the thought that it might just do that during her speech.

'It was going ok, I mean, I followed the palm cards that were written up for me, but then…' she trailed off.

"But then?"

'But then I ruined it by going off about how six pack holders are extremely dangerous to marine animals.' She admitted with a small sigh.

"Didn't like that huh?"

'No, they didn't. Even though,' she said hotly, 'it is a vitally important issue.'

"Of course it is." I agreed with her because it is. It's an extremely serious issue. Hundreds of thousand marine animals die because of six pack holders and other plastic products every year!

She then told me how she was planning on organising teams of volunteers to patrol the beaches of Genovia during nesting time for Sea Turtles, to make sure that none of their eggs are either disturbed by tourists or crushed by these machines that apparently comb the beaches every morning, so that they are free of seaweed. Like they don't have anything else better do.

'So, how was your birthday?' she asked once she had finished telling me about the Sea Turtles.

"Oh, that." I said with a laugh.

'Yes, that.' she replied and I laughed again.

"It was ok. Lil almost killed herself, but besides that it was pretty mundane."

'She WHAT?'

So I told her about my birthday and what a fun day that was spent hanging out in Promptcare, that wasn't very prompt at all. She was pleased to hear about my new laptop, as well as sounding quite angry when she heard about my lost of sponsors for _Crackhead_ because of my Linux vs Windows article.

'They can't do that. Not when you were only telling the truth.' Mia said in outraged, which had me smiling again.

"Apparently they can and they did. So." I replied with a shrug of my shoulders, which of course she couldn't see. "It's no big deal, though."

'How can you say that?' she asked sounding bewildered, 'You've been working on _Crackhead_ since you were thirteen! You can't just let it go because of those narrow-minded, cowardly people.'

"Yeah," I said, surprised that she actually remembered when I started _Crackhead_ since she was only a little kid at the time, I think she had just turned ten in fact when I posted my first ever _Crackhead_ article. "But I think it's time for a change. I was thinking of starting up a band actually." It's been an idea that Felix, Paul and I have been throwing around for a couple of years but we've all been too busy with our own things (not to mention we didn't have any original music of our very own and none of us were particularly good at playing any instruments a couple of years back), but now, now I thought might be good time to give it a try.

'A band?' she didn't say it as if she thought I was joking, but instead she simply sounded curious and interested and I felt a whole new wave of affection towards her flood through me.

"Yup. What do you think?"

'I think it's pretty cool.' She replied and I suddenly became aware of just how sleepy she sounded. I glanced down at my watch. It wasn't extremely late here but over there…

"Hey, isn't it like three in the morning there?" I asked.

'Yes.'

"Well, you'd better get to bed." I said, feeling like a moron for keeping her up at all hours of the night… morning because she was talking to me. "Unless you get to sleep in." Is it wrong that I hoped that she would say yes to that, so that I could keep on talking to her? "but I bet you have stuff to do tomorrow, right?"

'Oh,' she sounded like she was half asleep already, 'Just a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the hospital. And then lunch with the Genovian Historical Society. And then a tour of the Genovian zoo. And then dinner with the Minister of Culture and his wife." The most she talked the more I was filled with a sense of horror.

"Oh, my God." I was truly alarmed by what she was telling. I mean, what she was being expected to do was pretty full on and it was only, like her first visit to Genovia as a Royal and they already had her doing all that! Seriously! "Do you do that kind of stuff every day?" I asked, hoping beyond hope that she would say no, she didn't, that tomorrow was simply an out of the ordinary busy day.

"Uh huh." I'm not going to get my girlfriend back alive am I? They are going to work her into the ground with all this royal stuff and kill her because of it.

"Mia." I said with some panic, "You better get some sleep. You have a huge day ahead of you." And I want you to come back to me as more than simply a zombie.

"Ok." I rolled my eyes at her cheery, sleepy tone. She wasn't going to hang up, I could see that now. Crap, which meant, of course, I had to and I didn't want to do that.

"I mean it, Mia." I ordered all the same. I mean, clearly they weren't thinking of her health or they'd have cut back with all those royal duty crap and Mia certainly never thought about her health, so clearly I was going to have take on that role. "Hang up the phone and go to bed."

"You hang up first."

Crap….

I hate it when she uses that voice and by hate, I mean love, because it means that I'll do more or less anything that she'll ask me to.

I felt my lips twitch into the smallest of smiles. God, I love this girl.

"No, you hang up first." Whenever I heard this said in movies or TV shows, I thought it was the most corniest thing to say at the end of a phone conversation, but here, saying it to her, I meant it. I honestly didn't want to hang up. Though I didn't want her to hang up either.

'No. You.'

"No. You."

'Both of you hang up,' my darling sister's voice suddenly screeched down the line from the extension, 'Grandma needs to call Uncle Mort inSchenectadyto see how his toe surgery went." Thanks Lil, like Mia really needed to hear that.

With a sigh, which I heard Mia echo on her side, we both simply said bye and hung up more or less at the same time.

I pulled a face at the now hung up phone. I didn't even get a chance to say I loved her.

"Grandma." I called, "Phone is free."

Grandma looked up at me in surprise from where she had been watching some game show on the television.

"Oh Michael, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for Lilly to kick you off the phone so suddenly. I actually wasn't planning on calling your uncle for another half an hour." I gave her an 'are you serious' look before sighing and telling myself to just get over it already. Mia was exhausted anyway, and getting off then was probably for the best, who knows how long we could have both gone on with the 'no. you' thing. Not that I would have actually minded, but once again Mia was exhausted and seriously needs her sleep.

"How's Mia?" Grandma asked.

"Um, she's ok, tired. She's doing a lot over there, you know, meeting her people and government and so on."

"Yes, I can imagine." Grandma said nodding, "Most be tough for her." I nod.

"Yeah, but I think she'll be ok, she just needs to get used to it all first, then she'll be fine." I said with completely confidence. I mean, look how much her confidence in herself and her ability to speak her mind has improved in just the past few months.

Grandma smiled up at me, a knowing sort of look in her eye.

"What?" I asked, feeling my ears start to grow red.

"Oh nothing. I just don't I've ever seen you so happy before." Grandma said with a grin, as she moved to get up. I quickly moved to her side and offered her my arm to help her.

"Such a gentleman." She said smiling up at me fondly. "She's lucky to have you." My ears went, if possible, even redder at that.

"I think it's me that's lucky to have her." I mumbled back and Grandma chuckled.

"Alright. You're both lucky to have each other." She said, standing on tippy toe to kiss my cheek before she made her way to the kitchen to ring Uncle Mort about his toe.

Shaking my head I headed back to my room, though not before I walked into Lil's and smacked her over the back of the head for interrupting my goodbye to Mia.

"But you were both taking so long!" She whined as she rubbed her head. "And you promised you wouldn't be sickening together. I told you that the two of you would be sickening together!" I rolled my eyes at her ranting and left her room, once more heading for mine, to think over songs that I wanted my so far unnamed (and with no guaranteed band mates of yet to speak of) band to play.

Of course, thoughts of Mia invaded my head, and so that all the verses for songs that I had so far come up with were in some way related to her, but that was ok, since my basically my whole reason for getting into writing songs was actually because of her and the need to vent my feeling for her some way or another or I would explode or do something extremely embarrassing. So writing songs had been my answer, to keep from doing the things I stated above.

Writing songs has kept me sane while I couldn't have Mia. Though now that I actually have her (more or less), new ideas for songs still keep flowing into my head with every hour of the day.

And now I felt like I would explode if I didn't play them. At least writing them down was keeping me from going insane from being stuck in a condo inFloridaand not being able to see Mia.

God, I miss her.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Hey Everyone, here's chapter 3 and the long awaited phone call between Mia and Michael. I'm not sure why but this phone call aways makes me laugh whenever I read it. They're just so sweet together, and I guess, we also get to see a happier Michael. I mean, in the earlier books, he was like in a good mood, but I don't think he was particularly happy, but here, when he's talking to Mia, I think is the first time he actually sounds happy and cheerful.  
>I think Mia brings out a whole different side to Michael, a happier, possibly warmer side of him that he doesn't really let out for anyone else besides her, but that's just want I think. And that's how I'm going to try and write it too. I just think Mia brings out the best in him and because of that he wants to be the best... for her and will do anything to become so.<br>Anyway, thanks for reading and you know reviews are much loved or any ideas you might have for this fic or in a later one, anything that you have wondered about and would like to see written in these fics, let me know and I will try and put it in.  
>See you all soon<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Hey, sorry for the slower than usual update. I've been out all day with friends.  
>Anyway, this chapter is a little different then the others, but it is fun. It's about how certain characters' reaction to a certain movie 'grins widely.'<br>Please enjoy. 

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><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

"OH MY GOD!"

Lilly's scream from the den reached me all the way to the spare room/study that was at the moment acting as my room at the back of Grandma's and Pop's condo.

I could hear her through my headphone as I listen to Linkin Park. I could hear her overLinkinPark! LINKIN PARK! Over all their screaming lyrics and insane drum-beats! That's how flipping loud her screaming is.

I knew I should have brought my Breaking Benjamin CD with me too. Nothing drowns Lil out better than Linkin Park and Breaking Benjamin combined. Might end up giving me a headache, and possible deafness in my later future, but I suffer (or am going to suffer later on in my life) those things from facing Lil.

If I'm going to get a headache and go deaf, I want to do it my way and not because of my pain in the ass little sister!

"MICHAEL! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE! RIGHT NOW!" I snorted, as if. If she had asked nicely… nah, I would still probably not go down.

"Michael!" She came barrelling into my room, scaring Pavlov under my bed as she grabbed my arm and purposefully tried to drag me out of the room, almost strangling me on my headphones.

"What's your problem?" I gagged out once I managed to remove my headphones from around my neck.

"Just come on. I need to show you something." She was looking positively outraged about something, but then, what's new about that.

"No, you don't need to show me anything. Get lost." I said as I tried to yank my arm from Lil's tight grip on it.

"I do." She insisted. "They made a movie!" She snapped in outraged.

I just stared at her.

"They made a movie?"

"Hollywood."

"No, really? Funny enough, Lil, that's what they're known to do, make movies!"

"ON HER LIFE!" Lilly screamed at me in complete frustration.

I just stared back at her, completely bewildered.

"Who's life? What are you on about?"

"Mia! They've made a movie about MIA!" That stopped me.

"Wh-what?"

"Uh huh. About her life…."

"Oh crap." Was all I could think to say.

They made a movie about her? About her life? Oh god, why? Why would they do that? To her, I mean? And how did they get permission to make a movie? Oh, right her grandmother. Though there was one thing…

"That was fast." I said trying to get my head around this new piece of hell that Mia was going to have to face when she got back because you can be as sure as hell, it was going to be hell for her.

Lil gave me an odd look.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, the world didn't find out about Mia being a princess until October and it's January now."

"So?"

"So? Lil do you have any idea how long it takes to make a movie, even one straight to television?" She shook her head. "It's about six months, all up. You know, what with the pre-production, the filming and post production. They've had three months… ish, to make this film. It's going to be a pile of crap. And at Mia's expense too." I finished grouchily, quite ready to beat in the faces of all the people who were involved in the making of this film.

"Wanna go watch?"

"Not particularly." But she still dragged me to the den anyway.

It wasn't exactly as terrible as I thought it might have been, but it was still cringe worthy. They changed the last names of certain people and got completely rid of others. They renamed Lars to the name of our school mascot, which is a Lion that is dubbed Joe (for some bizarre reason) and they changed the ages of basically everyone. Like for a perfect example of both name and age changing, all of a sudden Josh, who's last name is Bryant in the movie (Lana Weinberger, who is portrayed surprising well, last name has been changed Thomas) and me are in the same year as Mia and Lil.

Lil and I got to keep our last names, much to our and our parents, who knew as much about this movie as we did, which is zilch, shock.

It took me a while to figure out why the guy who is playing me was bugging me so much, until I clicked.

"Hey," I said with some, ok a great deal of disbelief, "He's from Rooney!" I was greeted with a ray of 'huh's in response.

"He's from a band." I explained, rather pleased that I was played by someone musical when no one beside a few select people actually knew I could play an instrument (though not the harmonica (and no, I'm not going to start because of this) and never a piano with M&M scattered all over the keys. Or eaten a pizza with M&M scattered over. What is their obsession with M&M's in this movie? Serious… Oh M&M right, that's why. Face palm!). The two girls playing Lil and Mia were also pretty actresses, though one thing did bother me.

"Why is she brunette?" I complained for the umpteenth time, which costed me to be pegged with a cushion by Lil.

"That's the biggest thing you find wrong with this film!" She snapped at me in annoyance. "Her hair colour?"

"And the fact that they made it ridiculously huge at the beginning of the movie." Along with giving her huge glasses that covered her whole face, though they've gotten rid of both the glasses and the big hair by now, so that now the girl who is playing Mia looks like a super model. Yeah, like this is going to help Mia's feelings about her image! I was hating them, the people involved with the creating of this film, all over again for that.

"Look how they're portraying us! Her!"

"I am." I replied and I was, cringing at the very realistic portrayal the actress playing Lilly was giving of Lil's explosion over actress- Mia's hair.

"I was never like that!" Lilly shrieked while I was trying not grin at the 'Just because your hair sucks, get off mine,' comment that actress Mia had snapped back at actress Lil.

"Stop laughing." Lil shrieked as she pegged another pillow at me.

"Hey! Stop that!"

"Well, stop laughing then!"

"Lil, the only way to get through this, is to laugh at it." I said, trying not to groan at the 'big reveal' of Mia's new hair to classroom and the fact that Mr. G has been replaced by a Mr. O'Connell who teaches History and debate.

"But…"

"Lil, just sit back and laugh ok, seriously, it'll make it less painless."

She did try. That is to follow my advice on just watching the movie and laughing at it and trying to disconnect from the fact that we had actually lived what they were portraying on the screen. There were quite a few moments when it was impossible not laugh like the when the actress playing Mia slipped on the wet basketball bleachers, because it was just something we could both see Mia herself doing quite easily, though Lil had something of a hissy fit when she heard that they had renamed her show from _Lilly Tells It Like It Is_ to simply _Shut Up and Listen_.

"Which isn't actually a bad name, you know." I got another cushion hurled at me, which I good naturedly threw back at her, though my good, laughable mood quickly soured when I, was once again, thrown over for bloody Richter! And I actually asked her out in this… sort of, in a very round about way that again involved Pizza with M&M's on it, music and Cars (since when do I fix cars? Computers, I would get, because I do fix them. But cars?), but it was still an asking her out, even though actor me said it wasn't (felt like strangling him there even with the amusing 'WAIT FOR ME! No, not you - I don't even know you!' going on behind them by actress Lil).

"San Franciscobeaches look nice." Mom said when she walked back into the den with a bowl of popcorn and saw that both Lil and I were glaring at the screen. "Or not." She sighed as she handed the bowl to Lil.

The whole beach fiasco made me want to catch the first flight back toNew Yorkand beat Richter into a cream of wheat. Even though I know the true circumstance of Mia and Richter's kiss (hello, I was there, I witness it… shudder), this just pissed me off. How could they do that? Oh and wanted to do some serious social damage to Lana too!

"Kids," Dad said warningly because Lil and I must have been looking pretty murderous by this point, "it's just a movie. Calm down."

It was tempting to say 'no' but instead I did try to relax, though I tensed back up at the 'royally flushed' scene. I don't know why, but that pissed me off, but then maybe because it was reminding me of how I felt during those months when I really had felt like I had lost Mia forever, and funnily enough, I didn't like remembering those months or how I felt during them very much.

Anyway, the movie at least ended on a good note, surprisingly.

I was actually surprised when I finally clicked that I (meaning my actor) was going to ended up with Mia (actress that is). I honestly wasn't expecting that, even though, of course, I was pleased that it did happen, I just wasn't expecting it. Did they see that Mia and me were going to end up together even before we did or something? Why is it that the whole flipping world saw it before we did? How?

"Naw, so did Mia's foot pop when you kissed her?" Lil teased with disgust written all over her face.

"No." I replied with equal disgust, not because of the idea of Mia's foot popping (whatever that is. It was explained in the movie, but…) because I kissed her, but because of Lil's disgust at my kissing Mia.

"Well, I don't think it was that bad a movie." Mom cut in quickly, stopping the inevitable fight between Lil and me as fast as humanly possible. We both sent her 'are you kidding' looks before, grumbling loudly, headed for bed because there was seriously nothing else better to do.

"I'm going to write to them." Lil informed me as we headed upstairs.

"Huh? Write to who?" I asked, still trying to get my head around that stupid movie.

"To the studio who produced that pile of libellous trash, demanding that they write me a written apology for their disgraceful scriptwriting. I am going to fight for the honest portrayal of actual people and the events that they were involved in."

I just stared at her.

"Look Lil, I know that, overall, the film was a pile of crap, but don't you think you're going a little overboard? I mean, yeah, they got things wrong about what actually happened, but they probably had to change stuff to keep them from breaching a whole bunch of security and privacy laws. Like, how they changed people's names and their hair colour." I couldn't help but grumble out the last part.

"Oh my god!" Lil shrieked. "That's what you're most upset about? Her hair colour, seriously?"

"They could have found a blonde actress," I responded before tilting my head to one side, "but what are you really upset about?"

"Their untrue portrayal of the people involved." She growled and I clicked on.

I rolled my eyes.

"And by people, you mean, you, because you think they did an unjust portrayal of you, right?" she glared up at me and I rolled my eyes again. Of course. Of course, it was only her characterisation that she was upset about, not anybody else's.

"I think she portrayed you just fine, actually she may have even been a bit too nice for you." I got a hard, shin-shattering kick for that which caused me to yelp.

"I was never like that." She snarled at me. With slightly watering eyes I gave her 'you're joking me, right' look. "I wasn't!"

"Suuuuuure." I said, continuing up the stairs, though this time limping because of Lil's kick. Little, over-emotional, self-centre bitch!

"I wasn't! If I was ever hard on Mia, it was only for her own good." I didn't even bother responding to that. Wasn't like anything I could say would change her mind about this.

"You just wait until Mia hears about this. She will be rightfully…"

"Wait," I said turning back to her in horror, "you're not going to tell her about this, are you?"

"Duh."

"No, Lil, come on. Like she needs to hear about something like this when she's over in Genovia trying to make the right impression to her people. She'll start freaking out about her appearance and all that crap if you tell her about that pile of junk!" I said, panicking for Mia's sake. Lil simply gave me a disgusted look.

"You're a horrible boyfriend, you know that." She sneered at me.

"Oh yeah, how?" I was a little hurt by that, but I tried to not let it show.

"Because you don't want to tell her about this! She has a right to know!"

"When she comes back from Genovia but not right now, she doesn't need to, not with everything else she has to do. She has enough on her plate without worrying about this."

Lil's disgusted look only grew deeper and without a word, she shoved past me heading for her room, slamming the door behind her. Wonderful, but I'm right, Mia doesn't need to know about that movie right this very moment, when she came back to America and got home, then we'd tell her about it before anyone else has a shot, but not now.

How does my wanting to protect her make me a horrible boyfriend? What's wrong with wanting to protect her from people who are out to hurt and humiliate her? Why can't Lil simply understand that this is something that Mia will, when she does find out about it, want to forget about as fast as she possibly can, honesty to the actual people involved be damned.

Why can't they just leave her alone?

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Hehehe, Yeah I was watching the first PD movie (Which, despite what you might think from this chapter, I do quite like the movie. I was writing Michael's and Lil's reactions to it, not my own.) when I was writing the first couple of chapters of this fic and thought 'hey, what the hell, why not write a chapter about their reactions to the movie', and so I did. It was quite fun to write and am tempted to write one of those fics about you know the book characters watch the movie's or TV series based on their books. I think it would be quite amusing, but I won't do it for a awhile, not until I've written a few more of these fics first. I hope none of you mind my using the movie in here and some of the comments I made about it, I know that it's pretty 50-50 out there for those who like the movie and those who don't. I do like the movie, but I know, as we all know from the books, Michael and especially Lilly don't like it, so that's how I wrote it.  
>If any of you are wondering why I made Michael be a Linkin Park and Breaking Benjamin fan (<strong>Disclaimer:<strong> which I obvious don't own either bands or any of their material, well besides their CDs), 1) they were around in 2003-2004 and 2) I like them, so I made it so that he liked them too and 3) I needed a loud and drum filled band that Lil can still be heard over. Even through headphones. The Linkin Park CD that Michael was listening too at the beginning of this chapter is Meteora (because I was listening to it when I was both writing this chapter and also periodically while writing these fics, along with other bands like Breaking Benjamin, Trading Yesterday, 3 Doors Down, OneRepublic, Owl City, Nickelback and so on. I should do up a playlist for these fics, but they's be too flipping long, lol. I listen to a lot of music and obviously a lot of Rock and Alternate stuff.) which came out in 2003.  
>Anyway, I am tired so I'm going to get some shut eye.<br>Hope you all enjoyed and I'll update again soon. It's me, you know I will. Lol, like tomorrow probably.  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Do not own Princess Diaries movie or the bands Rooney or Linkin Park or Breaking Benjamin.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Look, lol, I've updated.

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><p><strong>Chapter Five<strong>

Mia rang the following night, a little earlier than she did the last time; it was around twelve o'clock over there when she rang us, well me, here.

I was lucky enough to be in the kitchen, getting a drink, when the phone rang, so that I was the first person to answer it and not have to go through the annoyance of last time she had a called.

"Hello Michael Moscovitz speaking." I said politely into the receiver.

'Hey Michael, it's me." My whole face broke into this huge smile.

"Hey, how are you?" I said as I sat down on one of the kitchen stools.

'Ok, been really busy over here.'

"I bet. So what have you been up to? Changed anything major in the world's economy or something along those lines that I should know about?" she laughed.

'No. I haven't done anything like that, though more because they, my Dad's government I mean, don't listen to any of my ideas. All they want to talk about is building another casino along one of the beaches here and trying to up the tourism even more.'

"Seriously? You're kidding right? A casino? That's their biggest concern?"

'Uh huh. They want to have free parking around their, I mean, our current ones as well.'

"Why?"

'Because they think that'll we'll get more tourist visiting if we have free parking or something like that for our casinos. They're all very tourist conscious here… and Olive…' I could hear embarrassment in her voice when she said 'olive' and I knew I was going to have to ferret out the reason behind that, after I got over my disbelief over her country's parliament.

"And of course, you don't agree."

"Of course, not that it really matters. They don't listen to my opinions about this anyway, or anything else. I keep trying to tell them that if we don't charge for parking it will simply encourage more people to drive over the French and Italian borders, instead of doing the smart and eco-friendly thing of taking the train, meaning that they'll clog up Genovia's already extremely busy streets and causing even more strain to our infrastructure here." I never realised how French she sounds when she gets upset or angry. Or maybe it's simply a new quirk that she has acquired from being over there, because she has to spend most of her time speaking French there.

"What does your Dad think?"

'Oh, he agrees with me, but there are more of them then there are of him and Grandmere doesn't exactly help the matter. She wants more casinos and more tourist in Genovia and all of the old guys in parliament are like in love with her, so they do and agree with everything she says, it's extremely disturbing.'

"I'll say." I hadn't personally met Mia's grandmother, but I had seen her on the Television and Mia spoke enough about her that I knew well enough what kind of person she is, and it's not a very nice one.

"So what about olives?" I asked and I heard Mia groan, before she told me this insanely amusing story about her accidently insulting the Genovian Olive Growers' Association. Then we somehow got back on to my birthday, with her asking me what I might like, which caused me to laugh.

"Mia," I said laughing, "I honestly don't want or need anything. Anyway, I'm going to be getting the best present of all in eight days anyway."

'You are?' she sounded so bewildered and I could just tell that she was pouting.

"Uh huh. You, silly. Your coming back in eight days is the best present anyone can ever give me."

"Oh." She sounded both embarrassed and pleased.

From there we got on to talking about my band, which is still unformed, and what names I might possible call it.

I had been half-heartedly thinking of calling it Frontal Lobotomy. However, I do not think the name is going to stick, purely because the whole inspiration for it came from the desire of wanting it done to Lil. It would certainly shut her up about that damn movie!

We were just getting ready to say goodbye and I was just about to tell Mia that I both missed and loved her, when Lilly suddenly came running into the kitchen, her eyes wild, which clued me in on what she wanted. So much for her promise to let me have Mia's next phone call all to myself, well beside from the quick Hi she said right at the beginning of this phone conversation when she came into the kitchen to get herself a drink and asked who I was talking to. I had been so hopeful that she would leave the whole movie thing out, which she had… then, but now…

I shook my head fiercely at her.

"I have to talk to her!" she said lunging for the phone, missing because I suddenly stood up from the kitchen stool so that I now towered over her.

I jerked my head to tell her to get lost.

"Let me talk her!" She yelled.

"Go away."

"I have to talk to her; I just remembered I have something really important to ask her."

I shook my head at her again.

"Don't tell her about that!" I growled back at her. So the only reason she didn't actually mention the damn thing to Mia before was simply because she had forgotten to, not because she had any sense of decency towards her best friend.

She kicked me in the behind the knee (a new favourite kicking spot for her) when I didn't hand the phone over to her. With grunt of pain, I doubled over because I honestly thought I would fall from how hard she kicked me behind the kneecap, groaning even more loudly when she tackled me and wrestled the phone out my hand.

"Little…" I started but was once more kicked, though this time in the shins, thank god, because I was sure that another kick behind the kneecap and I would have had been falling.

"Oh, my God, I forgot to ask." So she had forgotten, "Did you see it?" I groaned as I sat back down on the kitchen stool, so that I was still close enough to the phone, so that I could hear Mia's reply.

'Lilly,' I did smile when I heard the annoyance and severity in Mia's tone when she said Lil's name, 'I know that you are used to having me all to yourself, but you are going to have to learn to share me with your brother.' I was laughing quietly at this point because Lil looked basically livid at what Mia was saying, sounding like an adult chiding a young child. It was brilliant; this seriously needed to happen more often between them. Heck, you never know, it might. They need more of an equal balance in their friendship, especially with them getting older, they need to be more equal with each other, instead of Lil simply pushing Mia around and Mia doing everything Lil tells her to do. And who said anything about sharing her? 'Now, if this means we are going to have to set boundaries in our relationship, then I guess we will have to. But you can't just go around ripping the phone out of Michael's hand when he might have had something really important to - " Which I had. Hmmm, sharing. This might actually be a problem, one that I didn't before foresee. Neither Lil and I are, in truth, very good sharers. If it's ours, it's well, ours, we don't go sharing our things around. Not that I'm classing Mia as a thing. Hell no, but… this was certainly going to cause some issues… a lot of them, probably.

"Have you been watching Dr Phil again?" Lil snarled, "I can't believe they have _Oprah_ there, but not email. Anyway, shut up about my sainted brother for a moment." She shot me an evil look. Yup, there were definitely going to be issues with this. I sighed. I didn't want to share Mia, least of all with my little sister; I just wanted her all to myself. "Did… you… see… it?"

'See what?' I heard Mia asked bewildered. So she hadn't seen it or heard of it either. So maybe we could keep it that way. I made a lunge for the phone, but Lil simply just kicked me again. God, my life would be so much simpler if Lil had been born a boy, then I could simply pummel her back. 'What are you talking about?'

"Oh, just the movie," Lil said sounding oh so casual. I sighed. "Of your life. Or hadn't you heard your life story has been made into a movie of the week?" and suddenly it was all Mia's fault for the existence of the movie.

I rolled my eyes to the heavens.

There was a slight pause before Mia said, rather surprisingly, in a rather indifferent tone, 'So?'

I blinked at that while Lil's mouth actually dropped for a second in disbelief.

"Hello." Lil snapped, dissatisfied with Mia's obvious lack of interest in the subject of the movie about her life. "Movie. Of your life. You were portrayed as shy and awkward."

I gave Lil a weird look. Mia is shy and somewhat awkward, though I admit she is getting over both of those things.

'I _am_ shy and awkward.' I heard Mia remind Lil. She sounded bored which had me grinning again. Lil only looked more annoyed.

"They made your grandmother all kindly and sympathetic to your plight." Yeah, ok, they had definitely gotten Mia's grandmother a hundred per cent wrong. "It was the grossest mischaracterization I've seen since _Shakespeare__in__Love_ tried to pass off the Bard as a hottie with a six-pack and a full set of teeth."

"That's horrible." I heard Mia say, clearly trying to sound sympathetic, but failing miserably. 'Now can I please finish talking to Michael?' I moved to take the phone back off Lil, but she stepped away from me, as far as the phone cord would allow her to go.

"You didn't even ask how they portrayed me," Here we go, I was wondering when she was going to bring up her greatest concern and disgust with the movie. I rolled my eyes at her. She was so shallow at times, "your loyal best friend." I let out a tiny little snort at that, which had Lil shooting me a withering look.

'How did they portray you, Lilly?' I heard Mia ask tiredly. "And make it quick, I've got a breakfast and then a ride with the Genovian Equestrian Society in exactly seven hours.'

"They portrayed me as less than fully supportive of your royalness." Lil all but shrieked down the phone. "They made out like after you first got that stupid haircut." I rolled my eyes. Stupid, Lil? Really? Honestly can't see where they might have gotten the idea that you weren't a good friend to Mia in those weeks and that you didn't support her being a royal from? Pure fiction, maybe? To build up the drama in the movie? Can't possibly be because it's what truly happen, can it? "I mocked you for being shallow and a trend-follower!"

I sniggered when I heard Mia's bored, 'Yeah,' was all the reply Lil got for all her ranting.

"I was never unsupportive of your royalness!" Now she was shrieking. "I was your number one more supportive friend through the whole thing."

I pulled a face.

My god, Lil's selective memory was even worse than I originally thought it was. I could hear Mia giggling on the other end of the phone as I watched Lil grow all the more livid at the sound.

"I sincerely hope," Lil snarled through gritted teeth, "that you are laughing in disbelief over the idea that I was ever anything less than a good friend to you, Mia. I know we've had our ups and downs, but any time I was ever hard on you, it was only because I thought you were being true to yourself."

I gave Lil a disgusted look, which she of course, ignored.

I heard Mia mutter, 'Um, ok,' extremely fast over the other end of the phone. Lil looked satisfied (finally) while I wanted to beat her head in.

I leant back in the stool listening to Lil ramble on and on about the letter she is still planning on writing to the Studios who produced the film. I actually feel a little sorry for them.

I came out of zoning when Lil started shrieking that the man was not going to keep her down. I think Mia must have asked her what the hell she meant because she just kept saying the man over and over again.

I was finally able to wrestle the phone back off Lil, who was still chanting the man over and over again.

"Hey, it's me."

'Hi. Um, is Lilly ok? And who is The Man?' she asked puzzled as well as sounding tired now.

"It's Lil, when is she ever ok?"

I grinned when she said 'true'.

'So, who is The Man."

I thought for a moment on how to explain 'The Man'.

"Ok, so 'the man' is basically a figurative allusion to authority. Like how in the way the Freudian analysts blame everything on 'the mother', blues musicians have historically blamed all their woes on 'the man'. Traditionally 'the man' is white, a financial success, usually in his mid to late forties and has considerable power over others." I explained.

'Oh.' Mia said slowly, 'so naming your band The Man wouldn't be the best idea, even if it would annoy Lilly, huh?' I laughed at that.

"Probably not. It does have some possible misogynistic undertones, doesn't it?"

'Yeah, just a bit.' She laughed.

"Listen, you should probably head for bed."

'Technically, I'm already in bed.' She replied with tired cheek. I grinned.

"Fine. You should probably go to sleep then." I chuckled, even though, of course, I didn't want to say goodbye to her.

She let out a small yawn, which sealed my resolve to say good night and hang up.

"Ok, go to sleep, ok."

'Ok.'

"I mean it, Mia. Go to sleep."

After a bit more of this back and forth conversation, we finally said goodbye and hung up.

I sighed heavily because once again I hadn't been able to tell her either that I missed her or that I loved her.

Only eight more days until I saw her again.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Yet another chapter of Michael getting kicked by Lilly. Ever wondered if they grew out of that? I'm doubting it, but you never know, lol.  
>Thanks for reading and once again, I do like the PD movie, it's Lilly and Michael who don't like it, for obvious reasons. I mean, I know both, in different ways, want the Worlds attention but for their own gains and by their own means. Them ending up in the Media for any other reason then their own, I'm pretty sure would piss them off.<br>That and Michael is worried about how the movie will affect Mia's feeling about her self-image and about whether or not she'll be teased over the movie like she was over those photos of her in the _New York Times_ in book 3. That, more than anything else are the main reasons he doesn't like the movie.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

And those eight days were torture. They were long, hot and boring and I didn't receive a single phone call from Mia over them.

"It's probably her grandmother, you know." Lilly said randomly five days before we had to leave for home.

"Huh?"

"Her Grandmother. She's probably the one who's put a stop to Mia's calls." She gave a little shrug before turning her attention back to whatever she was doing (writing her letter to the studio, probably) on my old laptop.

Thinking about it, she was probably right. I mean, those two calls probably weren't cheap and they weren't exactly short conversation either. Not to mention, what Mia must have been like the day after them, probably half asleep, so I couldn't be mad at her for stopping the calls, not when she was already so busy over there and was using up precious sleep time to talk to me (and Lil).

Four more days. Three more days.

Two more days. Two more days.

One more day. One more day!

And then finally home.

I can't even begin to describe the feeling of being home, to be able to sleep in one's own bed again. As much as I do love my grandparents, my space is my space and I like it that way.

"Are you two all ready for school tomorrow?" Mom asked as she handed Lil and me plates as we got ready for dinner.

"Yup." Lil and I both replied. Mom looked torn between suspicion and relief.

It's kind of been a tradition in our household that the first day of school are always stressful due to us (usually Lil) forgetting something or other. The rest of the year, she's fine, but the first day of school, forget it. And there is also the problem of waking up early to get to school on time. Lil and I are not morning people and after a couple of weeks of being able to sleep into at least ten in the morning, tomorrow was going to be something of nightmare to get up for, that is, unless…

"Lilly, is Mia going to be back from Genovia in time to start school tomorrow?" Mom asked.

"She should be on the plane back right about now." Lil replied as she dug into her food with a great deal of zeal. Honestly, you would think we weren't fed over and Grandma's and Pop's, though nothing beats Maya's cooking.

"I was thinking of giving her a call after dinner." For some reason I felt embarrassed as I said this. I mean, it wasn't like my parents didn't already know that Mia and me were going out and they knew that she had been calling me over the break… ok, twice, but she still called, so why I was suddenly getting all embarrassed at the idea of calling her is beyond me.

"That's a good idea." Mom said with this wide smile that I swear is simply because of my going out with Mia. The parental unit have been insanely happy about this fact all Winter break. Maya looked mildly confused but Mom gave her look that promised that she would be giving her all details soon.

I fought back a groan and finished my dinner.

To save myself from further embarrassment of eavesdropping parents, sibling or housekeeper, I used my mobile to call Mia's place. I so rarely ever use my mobile that I actually forgot my password to unlock it.

"Some computer genius, I am." I muttered to Pavlov when I finally remembered it and unlocked my phone, which slowly came to life.

God, what was I going to say? Did Mia have this much trouble before she called me? She always sounded calm and ok tired when I spoke to her on the phone over the break, there hadn't been any nerves there at all. We had both been perfectly comfortable with each other, so why was I suddenly panicking about what I was going to say to her now? Ok, so maybe her not calling me for the last eight days had bothered me a bit more than I was allowing myself to admit. And I was also worried about her too. I mean, what if the reason she hadn't called me was because something had happen to her. She was sick or she had, I don't know, fallen off her horse during some royal parade, though I'm fairly sure we would have heard about that. The media do seem to love publishing all the negative aspects of Mia's life. I guess, they think it would be to boring to talk about the positives.

She's fine; a calm reassuring voice said in my head, she's probably simply been extremely busy with her royal duties.

This did reassure me that she was probably fine, but my nerves were still in place, curling and churning up my gut.

When I rang, I wasn't sure if I was happy or disappointed when I was only greeted by Mia's, Ms Thermopolis (and now Mr.G's) answering machine. The message I left was embarrassing either way.

"Uh, hi, Mia? Yeah, it's Michael. I was wondering if you could, uh, call me when you get this message. 'Cause I haven't heard from you in a while. And I was wondering if you're, uh, ok. And make sure you got home alright. And that there's nothing wrong. Ok. That's all. Well. Bye. This is Michael, by the way. Or maybe I said that. I can't remember. Hi, Mrs Thermopolis. Hi, Mr. G. ok. Well. Call me, Mia. Bye."

Can tell just how many girls I've called over the years, can't you? God, could I have been any more lame? Honestly, I don't know.

I flopped miserably back onto my bed.

What if she's met someone else while she's been over there, someone more suited to her class (or whatever they call it now days). Someone who is actually a someone, not just some nobody computer geek. Was that why she hasn't called, because of that, because of her meeting someone else?

Crap….

You're an idiot; a part of my brain informed me before leaving me to my misery for a while. Then it, and I think it the common sense part of brain that is doing all the kicking me out of brooding session, by pointing out that I should probably check my emails, because I haven't done that since I got back, more so to avoid any possible flames I may have received while I've been over at Grandma's and Pop's from Bill Gate Lovers. It was for this very reason that I hadn't set up my email account on my new laptop yet.

There were a few, though not as many as there were when I first wrote the article. Most were from people who simply wanted something to rant about and not because they actually liked and were defending Windows and Bill Gates against what my article had said about both. Though there was really nothing more than a paragraph on Bill Gates in my article, but that was obviously enough to bring the Bill Gate's fanclub down upon my head. And possibly Bill Gate's himself.

I was just finishing up reading the last of my flames, this one making no sense because the guy says repeatedly that he uses Linux himself and that he too prefers it over windows and yet he still bagging out me out over my article, (there are strange people in the world) when I got an Instant Message from Mia.

YES!

_**FtLouie:**_ Michael. Hi, it's me! I'm home. – I can see that, I thought with a wide grin - I wanted to call you, but it's after eleven, - heck what did you know, it was, - and I didn't want your mom and dad to get mad. – Though in this case I'm pretty sure they would have forgiven her.

I grinned widely at the screen, insanely happy as I typed back.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Welcome home! – yeah, since the demise of _Crackhead_ 'grumble, grumble', I decided that since it was dead, I couldn't really continue going around on the internet as CracKing, so after some careful thought on what would piss off all the Windows lovers out there (and make myself feel better of the loss of my Zine), I chose LinuxRulz. I honestly don't actually see the name sticking. I'll probably change it in a couple of weeks, but for now I need a little form of revenge against all the traitor's and backstabbers and so on. – It's good to hear from you. I was worried you were dead or something.

More worried that she was going to come back the walking dead because they worked her too hard over there, but I didn't add that.

_**FtLouie:**_ No, not dead. Just super-busy. You know, the fate of the aristocracy resting on my shoulders and all that. So should Lars and I pick you and Lilly up for school tomorrow?

I beamed, delighted. I had been hoping that, if she was back, that she would come by and pick Lil and me up for school. More time for me to spend with her and there was also something I needed to ask her.

Feeling nervous all over again, I typed back.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ That'd be good. What are you doing Friday?

Yes, my gift for going from one conversation to another, completely randomly, has not faded over the Winter break, but whatever, please say you're free.

I quickly check on the website that I had been browsing over for the past couple of hours, in between abusive emails. Please, please, please.

_**FtLouie:**_ Nothing, so far as I know. Why?

My face was hurting from smiling so hard. Could I be any more of a dork?

Ok, be calm Moscovitz and don't mess this up!

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Want to go to dinner at the Screening Room? They're showing the first _Star__Wars_. You know the _real_ first one, not the waste of digital pixels, _The__Phantom__Headcase_.

I remembered, with a shudder, the first time I had gone and seen that movie, which had actually been with Mia. By the time the movie got to the half way mark, we were more or less begging my Dad to let us leave. Lil was too, but for a different reason, she had simply not wanted to come in the first place. He didn't let us though. Leave that is, even though he was cringing just as much as Mia and me. The battle sequences at the end sort of made up for being forced to stay but otherwise… It had taken a several _Star__Wars_( the originals ones)marathons to get us over the horror of the badly written script, plot line, acting and well everything else (except for the digital effects, those had been pretty spectacular) that we had seen in the supposed first one of the saga.

Seriously, if Lil wants to write an angry letter about badly done movies, she should just write one on _The__Phantom__Headcase_!

_**FtLouie:**_ I think that should be ok. I'll have to check with my mom. Can I let you know tomorrow?

There wasn't any rush, but I still smiled at her eagerness.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Ok. So see you tomorrow? Around 7.45?

God, so freaking early!

_**FtLouie:**_ Tomorrow, 7.45.

I grinned even more widely before typing, for no particular reason other than I could and because I know she'll get it.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Kid, I've been from one side of this galaxy to the other…

Which I happen to know is a favourite _Star__Wars_ quote of hers.

_**FtLouie:**_ I happen to like nice men…

My smile soften and I felt simply happy, because duh, I know what happens after that, well after…

_**LinuxRulz:**_ I'm nice.

Han Sole and Leia finally kiss, much to delight of I think everyone who has ever watched the original series. I mean, I watched it when I was a little kid and I actually didn't feel like throwing up when I saw it, like I felt with nearly every other movie that had kissing scenes when I was that age.

We talked for a little while longer, about what we had both been up to since we last spoke. When I heard just how much she has had to do in the last eight days, my mild frustration and worry of her not calling evaporated.

At eleven thirty I told her it would probably be a good idea for her to go to bed, since tomorrow, though not as huge as the days she had had in Genovia, would still be tiring none the less.

I was going to see her tomorrow. No more waiting, no more phone calls, I would see her.

Simply her.

I went to bed actually smiling from the thought of seeing her.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Yeah, sorry, short chapter I'm afraid. Chapter 7 will be, I think, longer, can't be bothered checking.  
>Anyway, hope you all enjoyed and i'll update soon.<br>**Disclaimer:** Obviously I don't own _Star Wars._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

And I actually woke up early, almost giving my parents and Maya heart attacks when I walked into the kitchen at 6.30. My dad even check that he's watch to make sure that it was working properly.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious." I informed him as I grabbed a bowl of cereal and some coffee. Yes, I was awake but that didn't exactly mean I was in a good mood about it.

"And here I was thinking that you were gracing us with a good mood this morning." Dad said, looking mockingly offended at me.

"It's too early to be in a good mood." I grumbled back at him as I took a sip of my coffee.

"And yet you're up?" Dad pointed up.

I scowled at him before thumping my head against the table top. Bloody hell, it was too early to be awake!

"I don't think that classes as being up, dear." I heard Mom comment as she walked behind my chair, running her fingers through my hair, trying to bring some sort of tameness to the chaos that my hair is. She was fighting a losing battle there, there was simply no taming Moscovitz hair, it did what it wanted, when it wanted. But still, even with this knowledge at hand, she still tries.

"You had better brighten up before Mia comes." Dad said, continuing on with his teasing. "Don't want her to know what a grouch you are in the morning."

Maya gave a snort.

"Like she does not know already." She chuckled in her deep, accent voice. "She has known him for long enough."

"Thank you." I said to them all sarcastically, "are you both quite finished?"

"Leave him alone," Mom ordered, "he's nervous enough as it is about seeing Mia after so long, without you two teasing him."

I gave her a deadpanned look.

"Not helping Mom."

"It's Mia. What's he got to be nervous about?" Dad snorted.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"It's Mia." Dad said again, "She's seen you good and bad. You've seen her, good and bad. The whole nervous, awkward stage of getting to know someone, the good, the bad and the ugly, neither of you need to worry about it because you already know basically everything there is to know about each other."

This was true. I mean I have known Mia since she was six years old.

"It's still different." I said.

"How?" Dad asked looking amused and interest. As did Mom now. Oh god, I walked right into this one. As a quick look for help in Maya direction quickly informed me.

"Because before I was simply her best friends older brother and now…"

"You're her boyfriend? Honestly Michael, just because you are now her boyfriend, it doesn't mean you have you have change everything about your relationship with Mia. You can keep it exactly the same as before, just with the boyfriend elements thrown in as well."

"Does that work?" I asked doubtfully.

"Just be the person that you are and the person that Mia fell in love with and you should be fine." Mom finished for Dad.

"Ok."

"You don't have anything to be nervous about." Dad added with a smile.

"Ok." I said again trying to keep myself calm as I watched the clock slowly draw nearer and nearer to 7.45.

I fidgeted the whole time, though my parent's words did seem to calm down the worse of my nerves, so that when it came time to head down to the lobby to wait for Mia's limo, I was almost completely calm.

Though that almost completely calm quickly disappeared the moment Mia's limo came around the corner.

"You're pathetic, you know that right?" Lil snorted from beside me. I couldn't even thick how to respond to that jibe, too caught up in the worry of what I was actually going to say to Mia, seeing her face to face after thirty-two days. More than anything I simply wanted to grab her and kiss her but that probably wouldn't go down well.

"Really, really pathetic." I heard Lil saying under her breath as the Limo pulled to stop in front of us. Heart in my throat, which by the way is the strangest feeling ever, it really does feel like some vital organ is stuck half way in your throat, making it hard to breath and speak.

Then she hopped out of the limo and suddenly, I was normal again. I don't know how to explain it, one moment I'm nervous, unable to think straight and breathing had become a challenge and then, there she was and suddenly I was fine. I was calm, thinking with my full capacity and breathing normally.

I felt normal and actually, I don't think I've felt this normal since the last time that I saw her.

"Hi." She said, sounding a tiny bit squeaky and she looked shy, with this pretty pink blush flushing across her cheeks.

She had grown some over the break, not much, but still noticeable. So had her hair, growing still in the triangle shape that she hates so much, but I like because it's unique, like her. She is still as gangly as ever. And she is completely beautiful to me.

"Hi." I could have quite happily just looked at her all day, except of course, annoyingly I couldn't, as made extremely obvious by Lil's annoyed sigh from somewhere nearby.

"Oh for Pete's sake." She complained before storming past both of us and into the limo.

"It's really good to see you." And it was, it was fantastic!

"It's really good to see you, too." She replied shyly, but she was giving me this beautiful smile that I had prayed and hoped that would be simply mine one day and my heart skipped a beat when she smiled it at me.

"It's really cold out; will you two hurry up and get in here already?" We both heard Lil complain loudly from with the depths of the limo.

Mia's face exploded with colour and she ducked her head to hide that as she mumbled, "I guess we'd better…"

"Yeah." I said, moving forward slightly without thinking, grasping the Limo door to hold it open for her. She shot me her beautiful smile as she moved to step in, which just made the desire to kiss her, in public view be damned, grow even more.

I gently put my hand on her arm as she moved to duck her head into the limo, causing her to turn around to face me, with a mildly curious expression on her face.

"So can you go, on Friday night?" I felt shy again as I asked her, though again that disappeared when she smiled at me again and said, "uh huh."

I couldn't help it then. I mean, she is beautiful, she is my girlfriend and I haven't seen her in thirty-two days, so shoot me for wanting to kiss her.

I gave a gentle pull on her arm, causing her to step back towards me and moving faster than I was actually aware that I could, I bent down and kissed her, right on the mouth.

For a single moment, I thought I might have stuffed up big time due to Mia being, for a moment, unresponsive and stiff to my kiss, but before I could work myself into a state of panic, she started kissing me back and all was pretty much right in the world. Well, mine at least. And hers too.

It took a lot of self-restraint not to just wrap my arms around her and keep kissing her for the rest of the day, which was extremely tempting and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to hear any protests or complaints from the girl in my arms, but rude thoughts involving words like school, first day, people are probably staring at you, you sister is right there, kept invading my head and ruining a perfectly good reunion kiss.

I pulled away from her with a great deal of reluctance, her pouting didn't help either, but somehow I managed to get us both in the limo without falling back to temptation of kissing her again and for the rest of the day.

"Good morning." Lars greeted me as I closed the limo door and we had set off for school.

"Good morning." I said back to him, trying to ignore the fact that he was smirking a knowing, smug smirk from behind his Latte. I simply continued to focus on Mia, which is surprisingly restful now, not like it was before.

When I watched her before, it was from a distance, with longing for something that I thought I would never have, but now, she is my girlfriend and looking at her now is like the most natural thing in the world, like with everything else with her. I don't have to try, I just do.

Lil was on about her letter that she sent to the studio that created the film about Mia's life, annoyed that they haven't sent back a reply to her, even though it's been almost a week since she sent it. She's planning on going to the news media if the studio doesn't reply back to her by tomorrow afternoon.

This caught both mine and Mia's attention. Mia blinked at her in surprise."

"You mean you're going to have a press conference?" Mia asked surprised.

"Why not?" Lilly shrugged. "You did it, and up until recently, you could barely formulate a coherent sentence in front of a camera. So how hard can it be?" Insulting much, Lil?

Mia didn't say anything in reply, her face pulled into a worried expression.

I smiled reassuringly at her. She smiled nervously back.

We arrived at school and it was amusing to see the number of people that had casts on their limbs as we walked up the front steps into school.

I walked by Mia's side ignoring the looks we got because we were holding hands as we walked down the hall for her locker.

"I'll see you later, ok." I said as I quickly kissed her forehead.

She smiled up at me.

"See you."

With a happy sigh I headed for my locker before making my way to my homeroom, ignoring the looks that I received from Richter and his gang.

"So was that just a onetime thing or have you finally gotten your act together and asked her out?" Richter asked me as he came over to my desk.

"What's it to you?" I asked. He shrugged.

"Nothing, really. Simply curious. So, are you? Are you going out with the princess?"

I looked up at him, into his curious blue eyes and at everyone else who was looking at us, waiting for my answer.

"Yes, I am." I watched him blink at that.

"Good for you." He said and went back to his desk with the rest of his cronies.

"Welcome back." Our homeroom teacher, Mr Clarkson greeted us with an expression that spoke he'd much rather be in bed, much like the rest of us.

"Alright so new semester, so you all know what that means," he held up a bunch of papers, "new schedules."

Oh no.

Crap.

New time schedules, meaning all my classes may have been changed around, which is fine in one way, I might get out of having Richter in a couple of classes, but what about G&T and Lunch? What about if I get different times for those to Mia?

Crap.

When Clarkson called my name, I moved stiffly to his desk, my fingers crossed in my pants pocket. Please, please.

My time table was much the same as it was, except that now PE and French had swapped places, meaning I know had PE last thing for the day… wonderful. And my Multimedia class was now sixth period instead of fourth.

But lunch and G&T were at the same times as before. Thank god. But there was still the problem of whether or not Mia's schedule has remained more or less the same as last semester.

As I made my way to English, an idea suddenly occurred to me. Mia's algebra classroom is only just down the hall, so… I just hoped she still had Algebra this period.

A quick look into the classroom quickly soothed my worry because there she was, sitting behind Weinberger and getting her books out.

I knocked on the door, causing Mr G looked away from sorting out his notes on his desk to me, his eyes widening in surprise before he rolled them at me and nodded in Mia's direction, telling me to make it quick. I gave him a grateful smile before heading over to Mia's desk, my schedule in my hand, ignoring all the curious eyes that were following me in disbelief.

"Hey." I said when I came to stand by her desk. She looked up from her books to me, her eyes wide with surprise before smiling.

"Hi."

"What lunch have you got?" I asked. Please lunch A, please.

"A." I grinned.

"Same as me. You have G and T after?"

"Yes."

I grinned wider at her.

"Cool, see you at lunch." I said. I gave her the quickest of pecks on her cheek before I made my way out of the classroom.

"Hey, Mr G." I said as I walked past his desk, who just looked back at me with raised eyebrows and an amused look.

As soon as I walked into English I was immediately tackled by Judith and Felix, who both dragged me to the three empty desks at the back of the room.

"Please tell us that you and the princess are actually together now." Felix more or less begged me.

I grinned at him.

"Oh thank god." Felix said, flopping into the chair on one side of me while Judith took the other side.

"You two haven't gone out yet though?" Felix asked.

I shook my head.

"No, not yet. Friday we will though."

"Really?" Judith smiled at me. "What are you going to do?"

"Um, you know the Screening room?" they both nodded. "Well it's showing the first Star Wars movie, the original, this Friday and I thought I'd take Mia to it."

"Told you." Felix said around me to Judith. "Told you it would be something like that for their first date." Judith pulled a face back at him and handing him ten dollars.

I rolled my eyes at the pair of them.

* * *

><p>The day dragged and it seemed like forever before lunch finally came around.<p>

"You're not sitting with us today, are you?" Paul asked as the four of us walked into the caff together.

"Nope." I said with a grin, I headed over to where I could see Mia (and Lars) walking over to the salad bar.

With a quick grin to Lars, I darted around him and wrapped an arm around Mia's waist. She jumped before calming when she realised it was me.

"Hello." I said, smiling warmly at her.

"Hi." She said brightly.

"How's your day been?" I asked as we got our food and headed over to her table.

"Ok. You know, I'm not flunking Algebra." I grinned at her as we sat down at the table.

It was a little strange to be sitting at a table with a group of freshman, but overall, it wasn't all that bad.

They were a funny group of kids; each one of them having their own specific quirk that made them unique and stand out from the mundane sheep crowd that walked the corridors of AEHS. But of course, this meant that they were outcasts from the mundane sheep crowd, usually teased and bullied by the larger crowd of boring sheep. And because of this, they tended to force themselves to disappear, so you simply overlook them in the corridors, not realising that they really were unique, interesting people with their own ideas that they followed instead of following a trend like the rest of the flock.

So, even though for a while there they talked about Charmed, (which I simply can't stand mainly because the whole show is facile. It could be a great show, with some great story lines, but it doesn't because they always take the simplistic and superficial approach with every episode. The show has no depth), they actually made some interesting points besides Leo being hot and that they want the clothes that the girls in the show wear.

But anyway, they are interesting bunch of kids, because someone, I think Boris, brought up cloning. Like if you could clone anyone, who would it be and the answers that these kids gave were actually pretty good.

Several of them said they would clone Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk. Boris said he would clone Mozart so that he could finish his last requiem. We all groaned at him before we kept talking. Mia and Lil's friend Tina said she would clone, if she could, Madame Pompadour so that she could get some tips from her about romance. Beside me I heard Mia mutter something about Madam de Pompadour being famous for other things besides sleeping with a king.

I almost choked on my food as I tried to keep myself from laughing.

Lilly, and this surprise me some, wanted to clone Jane Austen, so that she could write a scathing novel about current day social mores and that we could all benefit from cutting wit. I've read Mansfield Park, last year for English, and it was long and it was boring. I didn't find it overly scathing or witty at all, just a book that with almost every single chapter spent at least five pages describing either a house or the dresses that the girls in the book were wearing. It was a dull book and Edmund was a complete idiot!

I have never met someone so blind as him. I mean, it was so flipping obvious to almost everyone else that Fanny had a thing for him, but he was completely blind to it… Oh, wait, I have met someone as blind as him and he happens to be sitting in my chair… face palm.

Anyway, when I was asked who I would clone, I said Kurt Cobain, and as I expected I would, I received a lot of weird, confused looks from all the kids sitting around the table. Not that I blame them, though, since it understandable that they wouldn't know who he is/was since they were only little kids when he died. But anyway, besides that, I explained that my reason for cloning him was because he was a musical genius who died way too young.

I didn't go into too much detail about him though, like for example, how he died. Drug abuse and suicide isn't exactly a topic you talk about at lunch, especially not in your school were those very words can have you dragged off to the principals office then off to the counsellor's room.

I then asked Mia who she would clone, though I actually had a pretty good idea who she was going to say.

She thought for a little while, probably trying to come up with someone other than who I was predicting she was going to say in the end anyway.

Somewhat red in the face she finally mumbled out Fat Louie, as I knew she would eventually. When she got even weirder looks than me for my choice of who I would clone, she explained that she loved him and that she wouldn't mind having two of him around.

Yeah, more people that I'd have to compete with for her attention. She loves that cat more than anything in the world.

"That's nice." I said because seriously it was. I mean, we had all chosen people from whom we'd have something to gain from, but Mia, Mia chose to clone someone, or rather her pet simply because she loves him, more than anything in the world, which is shows just how sweet and loving she is.

She ducked her head, embarrassed, and the conversation kept going.

* * *

><p>The rest of the day was pretty boring and dragged out, that by the time it came to going home I felt dead on my feet, though Mia probably beat me with that feeling, because she actually looked dead on her feet.<p>

She looked so exhausted when walking for her limo that I was actually worried that she might fall over because her eyes kept dropping close with each step she took.

Jet lag, I suddenly realised, she only flew in from Genovia last night and they were several hours in front of us, so no wonder she was so quiet and out of it today.

I tried to ring her later that night only to be told by her mom that she had literally pass out and that it wasn't likely for her to wake up anytime sooner than tomorrow morning. I said thanks before hanging up, worry for her making my stomach coil.

Why didn't she just stay home today? Or why couldn't she have been flown back Sunday, so that she could have had yesterday to recover from her trip?

Biting my lip I headed back for my room, trying to force my brain to focus on other things, because worrying about her won't do anything, I know, but I can't help it.

So while I tried out some of my new songs out of my guitar (which I had had to leave here because Mom and Dad wouldn't let me take to the Grandma's and Pop's condo, saying that we had enough luggage (and Pavlov) as it was without the add addition of my guitar. Which I guess I can understand, it isn't exactly the lightest of things on the face of the planet.), as well as trying to come up with a band name (Felix and Paul, while eager to give the whole band thing a try, were as clueless as I was as to what to name ourselves. Felix had teasing suggest Flypaper as a name, but I promptly turned down the idea by thumping him in the shoulder, hard.), I continued to silently worry about her.

She'll be fine, I kept telling myself, she's simply tired. She'll be fine tomorrow.

I kept telling myself this all night until I finally fell asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So M&M are finally reunited! YAY!  
>And guess what I've more or less finished writing today. That's right, I have more or less finished writing this fic. YAY! I'm pretty happy about that. I think this is the quickiest I have ever written a fic, I'm quite proud. I've been bored and have been on grandmother sitting duty, and what else is there better to do between get thousands of cups of tea and making sure she is eating her food at the right times, but write! So that's what I've been doing.<br>Now on to book five! YAY!  
>Thanks for reading and comments are much loved!<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Sorry, my internet is currently snail-speed, so yeah, updating is currently a pain in the butt. But anyway, here is chapter 8, for all your enjoyment.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight<strong>

"Mia's going to come and pick us up in about ten." Lil said as she stuck her head around my bedroom door at 7.30 the next morning.

"Is she ok?" I asked worriedly.

"She sounded fine to me." Lil said with a shrugged and withdrew her head from my room.

I took a deep breath to try and relax myself. I know it's silly to be worried over something as normal a jet lag, but I can't help it. When Mia gets sick, she gets sick bad, so can you really fault me for worrying about her?

After about five minutes of simply fussing around, getting all my stuff for school together, before I decided, despite the cold (which in truth, I don't mind. I'd rather be cold and rugged up than too hot and not really being able to do all that much about it, besides turning the air con up even high) that awaited me outside on the street.

Lil grumbled at the thought of going down when we still had at least five minutes to spare, she isn't a fan of the cold, but she came down with me anyway, probably so that she can get away from Mom and Dad's display of being overly affectionate with each. You would think, that with having two teenagers living in the house, they would stop being so overly affectionate with each, in the fear that we might get ideas, but they don't, even though both Lil and I wish they would, or at least confine the affection to the privacy of their bedroom.

When we got downstairs, Lil decided to stay inside the lobby, heading for out letter box to check if we had any new mail or rather she had any new mail, while I headed outside.

There was a strong wind blowing, cutting me almost straight to the bone with its chill but I simply pulled my coat and scarf more tightly around me and shoved my gloved hands deep into my coats pocket and waited for Mia's limo, which appeared a few moments later.

As I climbed into the limo, I immediately saw that she was looking better, a lot better than she had yesterday.

But I still asked, "Are you ok."

She smiled and nodded.

"I called you last night," I told her as Lil shoved me to move over so that she could get into the limo too. "But your mom said you had passed out…"

"I was really, really tired." She admitted looking a little sheepish. "I slept for fifteen hours straight." Which for her is quite impressive. Whenever she is over at ours and she has stayed the night, she almost always one of the first people to be up in the following morning.

I opened my mouth to say something only to be cut off by my darling sister.

"Whatever," Lil said, not at all concerned about Mia's health or wellbeing. "I heard from the producers of your movie." She informed us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lars rolling his eyes behind his huge latte, while I simply fought back a groan. Mia was the only one who showed even the slightest interest in what Lil was saying.

"Really? What did they say?" Mia asked curiously.

"They asked me to take a breakfast meeting with them." She said, sounding smug, though at the same time trying to hide just how smug she was and, of course, failing miserably at it. "Friday morning. So I won't be needing a ride."

"Wow." Mia said and she actually looked impressed, "A breakfast meeting? Really? Will they serve bagels?" it took a lot of effort on both mine and Lars part not to start cracking up laughing at that. Sometimes it really does seem to appear that Mia forgets that she is, in fact, a royal and that she will probably meet a whole heap of amazing people and visit all these amazing places. She just sounded so amazed and at awe with Lil's breakfast meeting, completely forgetting that like two weeks ago she met the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales.

I sat back and listen to the two of them talk about Lil's breakfast meeting, with Mia asking Lil what demands she'll be asking the producers of the film at the meeting, only Lil wouldn't tell her. Mia pulled a face at that and looked all worried again.

"Is it really that bad?" Mia asked me as Lil stalked ahead of us into school. "The movie of my life, I mean?"

I thought carefully before I answered.

"It's not bad, as such, they just get a lot of stuff wrong, that's all. Though, they did get a lot of stuff right and that's what's pissing Lil off so much." Mia tilted her head, looking confused.

"You remember the fight you and Lil had, way back, over your hair?" She pulled a face but nodded.

"Well, somehow I think they must have guessed that something along those lines happen between the two of you and so, they put a scene in similar to what really happen between you into the movie and Lil's pissed off about that. That and they got the name of her show wrong."

"What did they call it?"

"Shut up and Listen."

"That's not such a bad name, if you think about it."

"That's what I told to her." I replied with a grin.

"But overall, it's not bad?" Mia said as I walked her to her locker. "Tina likes it and Mom said it is the funniest thing she has ever seen." Of course Helen Thermopolis would think that and Tina… well, I guess the movie about Mia's life was right up her alley.

"It's not terrible, but I think it would be best that when you do get around to watching it, to watch it with a sort disconnected attitude. Just watch it like you do every other movie, don't nick-pick it and get upset over it, like Lil has, just accept it as it is and you know, move on. People haven't given you a hard time about it, have they?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing more than usual. Lana's been shooting me dirty looks, but that's nothing new. The only person giving me a hard time about it, really, is Lilly. Everyone else doesn't seem to care." She looked so relieved at this and of course, I was too.

I admit I had been expecting the worse from the student body of AEHS but for once they surprised me with their lack of caring and I was delight at it, because of course, it meant Mia was left alone and could just be her without having to be of the defensive all the time because of their jaded, narrow-minded comments and insults.

"That's good. I'm glad." And I was, "I'll see you at Lunch." I promised giving her cheek a quick peck, which wasn't nearly enough, especially since I hadn't been able to kiss her this morning, but I couldn't kiss her here in the corridor, by her locker. I'm not Ritcher or she isn't Weinberger, thank God on both accounts, besides kissing her here would only embarrass us both. It's ok in front Lars (because he's always around and there's no way to get around that) and Lil (who has been surprisingly good about the whole thing, only a few grumbles here and there, but otherwise she keeps quiet about the fact that I make out (ok, so really it's only been twice that I have made out with Mia) her best friend.), but everyone else on the whole flipping planet? No way in hell!

I gave her another kiss on the cheek, just for good measures before heading for my own locker.

"Oh thank god!" I heard a loud and cheerful voice say, quite close to my side, "You weren't lying about being with the Princess."

"Shut up Felix." I grumbled at him, feeling embarrassed. "And could you say that any louder?"

"Come on. Like the whole school doesn't already now about your whole make out session at the Winter Dance."

"Yeah, but the rest of the world doesn't need to know." I shot back. Felix raised an eyebrow at me questioningly.

"They're going to find out eventually, you know. Either by one of these loud mouths or because they simply see you and her together and connect the dots, they're going to find out."

"Yeah, I know." I said, rubbing a hand against the back of my neck.

"You're worried they'll judge you when they do find out, right?" Felix observed and I pulled a face at him.

"You want my advice?"

"No," even though Felix had he's moments of giving some pretty sound advice, "but you're going to give it to me anyway, right?"

"Free of charge to, so be grateful."

"What's your advice Felix?" I asked before he started rambling.

"Just go with it. Be Zen. Whatever they say about you or her, don't let it get to you, because that will just make it worse. Just let it all roll off your back because, when it really comes down to it, it doesn't matter. What they say and think, it doesn't matter for shit. What does matter is what you think about her and what she thinks about you, everything else, non-important. So if they start talking about how inappropriate it is for her to be with you, or how unworthy you are for her, or whatever, just ignore it because it isn't what she thinks. When she starts to think like they do, yeah, then you might want to worry, but I doubt that she'll ever will. She thinks the world of you, so don't go messing that up because you're worried about what a couple of outsiders say about your relationship with her."

I just stared at him, more than slightly amazed at what he had just said.

He was right of course. It didn't matter what a people thought about mine and Mia's relationship, our relationship was ours and it what we thought about it that mattered, not their opinions of it.

"What about her Dad? Her Grandmother?" I added with a shudder.

"I really doubt you'll have any trouble from her Dad. He seems like a pretty cool guy from what I've seen of him on the TV and read on the internet. Her grandmother on the other hand, hell even the princess seems to have trouble with her grandmother, so I think you can pretty much ignore anything that she might throw at you."

"Thanks Felix." I said sincerely.

"Your still going to worry about this, aren't you?" He asked as we walked for our homerooms.

"From time to time." I admitted, "But I'll try to keep it from consuming me."

"Good man." Felix said cheerfully, slapping my back wholeheartedly, winding me ever so slightly.

"See you in English." I said with a wave as I ducked into my homeroom, ignoring the stares from Richter and his cronies.

* * *

><p>"Did you hear that the Princess was pulled out of second period?" Paul asked me as he and Judith came and sat with Felix and me at the back of the Chem lab.<p>

"WHAT?" I yelled, ignoring the startled looks sent in our direction. "Why?" I asked somewhat more calmly.

"Don't know." Paul admitted, "But apparently she left the school with this old woman dressed in this cape thing and carrying this hairless dog thing. Apparently she had no eyebrows either." I groaned, loudly and thumbed my head against the lab bench.

"What?" all three of them asked me bewildered by my reaction to this news.

"That old woman, I'm fairly certain, was her Grandmother." I explained, groaning again.

"Seriously?" Felix asked, amazed.

I nodded and the other two looked just as dumbstruck as Felix.

"Why, do you think, her grandmother came and took her out of second period?" Judith asked as we pulled out our books. "You don' think her Dad has had a relapse of his cancer, do you?"

"Jude," Paul said calmly, "you're freaking him out." He gave me a prod in the shoulder trying to get me to relax from my frozen stance.

"It's probably not that, though." Jude tried to amend quickly.

"Yeah, and I doubt that she's about to be shipped back to Genovia to live because of her Dad's "illness"." Felix added and the other two hit him.

"Maybe it just some urgent royal commitment or something?" Paul suggested. "Maybe some ambassador from some feign country has come to meet the Princess or something."

"Maybe." I said but I wasn't convinced. Something in gut told me something was up and that I wasn't going to like it overly much.

* * *

><p>Mia was back at school by lunch, looking quiet and dejected. Maybe the rumour that had been circulating around the school about her Dad having a relapse of his cancer really was true and the reason behind her being dragged out of second period by her Grandmother. Though, for some reason, I kind of had my doubts about this.<p>

I don't know, just in my head, it just didn't look logical to me, it didn't make sense. Why not send a bodyguard or someone like that down instead and wouldn't Lars have been informed that his former charge was ill and then he, instead of the Dowager Princess, would have made Mia leave second period? I don't know, the whole thing, now that I started thinking about it, was odd.

Anyway, as soon as I saw her (and Lars of course, though oddly he wasn't looking as nearly as worried as I thought the former bodyguard of the Crown Prince of Genovia should. Actually, he looked like he had spent the past few hours being bored out his brain. Odd… and fuelling my doubts that Mia's Dad has really had a relapse of his cancer even more) I rushed through the crowd to her side.

"Hey." I said as I came to her side. "Everything ok?"

She looked up at me in such a dejected way that I couldn't help what I did next and that was hug her, right in the middle of the corridor in front of all the stragglers heading for the Caff for lunch. I mean, even though I now have all these doubts about the rumours about her dad's cancer coming back being actually true, it was obvious as hell that Mia was upset about something.

"It'll be ok." I said when she had wrapped her arms around my waist. I think I heard her mutter something like she highly doubted that, but I wasn't sure.

"Is there anything I can help with?" I asked as we walked for the caff, "help you with your Algebra homework or something? I know it isn't much, but it's the least I can do…" I trailed off because she was hugging me again and after moment, when she was absolutely sure the cost was clear, kissing me too.

I kissed and hugged her back, mildly confused, but going with the flow of things anyway. Heck if this made her feel better about whatever had gotten her so upset then who was I to complain?

It was another fifteen minutes before we actually made it into the caff, but Mia seemed to have perked up some by this point, so I was too bother, even though I was rather hungry by this point.

I still had no idea what was going on, the real reason as to why she had been dragged out of second period by her grandmother, now that I was fairly certain (in my head at least) that her dad was, in fact, not really sick.

I simply had no idea what was happening, but I wasn't about to pry either. Mia, I knew, would tell me what was going on into her own time, so brooding about it wouldn't do me any good.

So with a slightly defeated sigh I accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be in the dark about whatever it was that was happening in Mia's life at the current moment in time.

* * *

><p>Though not for as long as I thought I would be. Not that I actually found out what was up, only that something was up and whatever it was it was happening Friday night… typical. Of course, it would be Friday night. At least on the bright side, her Dad hasn't had a relapse of his cancer. I am glad that that isn't true, even if the real reason for her disappearing act with her grandmother is because of something happening Friday night.<p>

Anyway, how I found out the something was up and it was happening Friday night, was when I received an Instant Message from Mia that night.

_**FtLouie:**_ Hey!

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Hey back atcha! Where have you been?

Because I had been checking for most of the afternoon if she had come online or not and it was now close to nine o'clock at night.

_**FtLouie:**_ Princess lessons.

You could easily read the disgust in her words.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Don't you know everything there is to know about being a princess yet?

Because seriously how much more can there be? From what I had seen, she had the whole princess thing down pat, well most of the time.

_**FtLouie:**_ Apparently not. Grandmere's got me in for some fine tuning. Speaking of which, is there, like, a later showing of _Star__Wars_ than seven o'clock.

I was groaning as soon almost immediately. She can't come, something's happen and she can't come.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Yeah, there's an eleven. – I typed back cautiously, then I threw caution to the wind and decided to simply bite the bullet. – Why?

_**FtLouie:**_ Oh, nothing.

Little liar.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ WHY?

Which probably came across as me being mad at her or something, but I simply really wanted to know. I really wanted to know that it had something not to do with a) her father being on his death bed or something, meaning she'll most likely have to move to Genovia permanently (Unlikely, I know, but it could happen), b) that either her grandmother and father have decided that I'm not suitable enough for her and aren't allowing her to go because of that or c) she simply doesn't want to go with me because she's found someone more suitable for her… station? Yeah, that one I found unlikely too (or rather praying to be unlikely) and then there was d) she has princess lessons that she has to attend and it was likely to run late.

Out all of them, I was hoping for d to be it, for obvious reasons.

_**FtLouie:**_ I've been trying to think of some names for your band.

Stop beating around the bush and avoiding the topic… that's my job.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ What does that have to do with whether or not there's later showing of Star Wars Friday night?

_**FtLouie**_**:** Well, nothing, I guess. Except what do you think of Michael and the Wookies?

That you been playing with Fat Louie's catnip mouse again, was what I typed back. Honestly, if I didn't love her as much as I do, I would give her such a head noggie for that one.

_**FtLouie:**_ Ha ha. Ok, how about the Ewoks?

Ok, I admit I did lose my temper here, but mainly because she using an avoidance technique that I so often see Lil use on our parents and wasn't overly appreciating the fact that she was using it on me.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ The EWOKS! Where did your grandma take you today when she hauled you out of second period? Electric shock therapy?

I was groaning the moment I sent that. It was harsh, way too harsh, since I know had the feeling that her whole avoidance thing had less to do with her not wanting to go and more to do with protecting me from whatever it was she actually had to do Friday night and possibly keep me from being mad at her and I go and say something like that!

I was about to type back an apology when Mia, rather meekly typed back that she was only trying to help, which of course simply made me feel ten times worse.

I sighed heavily.

If she didn't want to tell me yet what she was actually getting up to Friday night, then fine, I'd accept that and I'll let it go for the time being.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ I know, sorry. – which I meant with my whole heart and I hope she understood that, - Only I don't think the guys would really enjoy being equated with furry little muppets from the planet Endor. I mean, I know one of them is Boris, but even he would draw the line at Ewoks, I hope…

_**FtLouie:**_ BORIS PELKOWSKI IS IN YOUR BAND?

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Yeah. Why?

_**FtLouie:**_ Nothing.

Which, just there, proves that Kenny's fears and accusation from last year (his apparent reason for his whole public dumping of Mia) about Mia and Boris having a secret fling going on, is completely false. I mean, yeah, the two of them get along most of the time, but that's basically as far as it's ever going to go, getting along and that's really only because Lil's throws them together with her latest schemes, so they have no choice but to get along with each other.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ Boris isn't so bad. – I typed back. – once you get to know him.

And really, he isn't. A tad weird at times, but heck, who am I to talk when I've spent the last six or something years hanging out with Felix, the king of weird, that is, when he feels like and isn't stone off his nut.

But anyway, I don't actually mind Boris. He's a good kid, smart and when you get him playing something other than Bartok, he's one hellova musician.

_**FtLouie:**_ I know. He just doesn't seem like the band type. – which is actually true, it took a lot of convincing over the break to get him to finally agree to join the band, - All that Bartok.

Yeah, but we made him promise yesterday not to play it during any of our band rehearsals. G&T fine, because I'm the only one who's in it with him, so the only one who will suffer from Bartok, our rehearsals no.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ He plays a mean bluegrass, you know. Not that we'll be playing any bluegrass in the band.

Over Felix's dead body.

With a small sigh, I went for biting the bullet again, though this time a bit more gently than before.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ So will your grandmother let you off on time?

_**FtLouie:**_ What?

I couldn't help but grin at her confusion, a state I seem to have a talent for putting her in. Not sure yet, if that's a good or bad thing.

_**LinuxRulz:**_ On Friday. You've got princess lessons, right? That's why you were asking about later showings of the movie, wasn't it? You're worried your grandmother isn't going to let you out in time?

I waited about a minute before she responded.

_**FtLouie:**_ No, it will be OK. I think I can get off early.

I sighed heavily. I wasn't so sure that she would, not easily anyway. But I knew she would try to and that meant something.

I burned her off a CD of Pearl Jam's greatest hits, even though, at the moment, I know the chances of her actually listening to it is actually very low, but I'm pretty sure with time, it'll grow on her, along with similar type of music. Ok, I admit, my reasons for doing this aren't altogether pure, it isn't just me simply trying to broaden her musical interest, it's also me trying to get her to like music that the band will most likely be playing.

I placed the CD into an empty case. I had typed up each name of the songs on the CD and I slide that into front of the case.

I stretched my arms stiffly above my head before sliding the CD into my school bag to give to Mia tomorrow morning. Or rather, this morning, it was after twelve.

I sighed; think how much fun it was going to be to get up at quarter to 7.

I flopped back on to my bed, trying to think of how I could save mine and Mia's first date, because I doubt, despite what she says, that she'll be able to go to the seven o'clock showing and going to the eleven, isn't an option, all the weirdo's go to that one and there is no way I'm putting Mia into that situation.

So, the real question is now is, where the heck is our _Star __Wars _DVD?

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> This chapter, beside involving Mia and Michael's instant message conversation there at the end, was mainly created so as to stop myself from getting bored with the writing this fic. Fourth book, kinda boring when writing from Mike's POV. Oh, there's the good part at the end of the book that you've all been waiting for, but to actually get there means lots of writing of lots of random scenes (Again with the stone-head giving our fairly clueless hero some much need advise. And has anyone else notice how often I make Paul the seer of whenever Mia is sent to Gupta's office? I've been reading back over these fics and have noticed he's almost always the one who tells Michael that Mia has been sent to Gupta's office. I think I've only had Felix tell him once. Paul must live there or something or he's getting into trouble with things off to the side that we never see... Maybe I should make him one of those students who work the attendunce office or something in the next book, just to explain why he's around there so often.) to kill the boredom of getting there.  
>Sometimes I think I really should just do what others have done and just write the scenes that Michael is in, instead of creating all these scenes involving Felix, Paul and Jude and whoever else pops into my brain.<br>Anyway, if you think the waffling in this chapter was bad, the next couple of chapters are worse, in particular ten and eleven, they're just waffling central. Basically two whole chapters of just my own stuff, though with some rather good Felix, Paul, Jude and Lil scenes in them.  
>Also I've basically finished writing the prologue of book five, <strong>The Fifth Note of SkinnerBx<strong>.

**P.S** I do not own Pearl Jam. I do not own even one single album of theirs, brought or pirated (_Michael! _We're ashamed of you! Burning a CD, even for your love, how can you live with the shame? Though, I have to admit, I don't think the pirating laws were so restrict back in 2004. Anyway we still love you, anyway.)


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Lil was still going on about her breakfast meeting with the producers of Mia's movie that was happening this Friday, so I couldn't get a word in edgewise to Mia. All we managed to say to each other the whole trip to school was 'Hi' Lil started ranting again.

I did, however, sneak into Mia's Algebra class on my way to English to give her the Pearl Jam's CD I had burned off for her the previous night.

She looked surprised and curious when I handed it to her, explaining to her who the band was (she knew of them from me and had heard them because of me, but she had never actually listen to them for herself) and that I thought she might like to give them a try. Which she said she would, as she smiled up at me making my heart do all these funny things that I never realised it could do before finding I had feelings for her.

Yeah, I thought, as I gave Mr G a wave (he's given up even bothering to look amuse at my turning up in his class to visit his step daughter, he's pretty much just letting it slide), you'll listen to it, in like, two months time. Because it's true, Mia's interest in bands are fairly limited at the moment, but I'm fairly sure that'll change. I mean, when Judith first started hanging out with Felix, Paul and me, she detested rock and roll and now, she listens to Linkin Park.

* * *

><p>"What's wrong with you?" Was Felix immediate question the moment, he, Paul, Judith and I all sat down at our usual lab bench at the back of the Chem lab.<p>

"What?"

"You've been down all morning. What gives?" Felix demanded.

"Nothing."

"Uh huh, you know, when most people say it's nothing, it usually means it's something, so spill." Paul said while Felix held up his text book threateningly, making the motion that he'd give my head a sound bashing if I didn't spill my guts soon.

"Nothing," I said again, and Felix raised his book a little higher to bring it down upon my head, "I'm just thinking about tomorrow night. I need to think of some alternative plans, that's all."

"Huh? I thought you were going to _Star Wars_." Paul said confused.

"What happen? Why do you need alternate plans?" Felix asked at the same time.

"She has something on tomorrow night, doesn't she?" Judith guessed, she had been quiet up to this point.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Do you know what? Like how long whatever she's got to do will go for?" Jude asked. I shook my head.

"I don't even know what she's actually doing that night, except that it's something Princess-y. I only know is that she'll probably miss the seven o'clock showing of _Star Wars_. And like hell I'm taking her to the eleven o'clock showing." I added because Felix looked like he was about to suggest just that.

"Oh the bright side, at least you know she's as down about this as you are." Paul said and I gave him a weird look.

"I saw her earlier and she looks as mopey as you do." He explained and I felt suddenly bad. I didn't want her feeling bad about this. I mean, I get and understand that her being a princess must come first, I didn't want her to feel bad about that just because it was going to mess up our date.

"So what are some of your alternate plans for Friday?" Jude asked.

"I was thinking of her simply coming over to mine and watching _Star Wars_ there. I just need to get my _Star Wars_ DVD off my Dad's friend."

The other three nodded. Only a couple of nerds would actually think that that classed as a good back up first date plan.

"Sounds like a good backup plan," Felix started, "but how bout you wait and see if she can't get out of whatever she has on Friday first."

"You think she will." Jude asked.

"I think that she'll try her hardest too." Felix replied as he stretched his arms above his head. He looked to me for confirmation. I nodded.

"She said she would try." I admitted, but that didn't stop the worry curling around in my stomach.

* * *

><p>Lunch was a little weird.<p>

From what I gather from the chaos around me was that Tina had been dumped by her boyfriend and it was all Jane Eyre's fault.

It took me the better half of lunch to find out that Jane Eyre was in fact not a person but in fact a romance novel written around the same time as Jane Austen's books Mia had explained to me when I had admitted to never having read or even heard of the book in question.

Hey, I still thought they were talking about an actual person, not a book, and you would have too, what with the way some of the girls were talking about it, it really was like she was, in fact, a real person instead of a fictional one.

Mia actually looked relieved when I said I hadn't read or even heard of the book. When I asked her about it, she went a little red in the face as she admitted that her grandmother had made her read it over the Winter break and while reading it, she had thought that it would be a good book for Tina to read too. She looked guilty at that.

"It's not your fault that she, from reading the book, decided to play mind games on her boyfriend." I reassured her quietly even though it seemed that this simply only made her feel even guiltier.

It was hard to stay focused on the conversation when all the conversation was about was how evil boys and men are and that it was all the fault of romance novels for building false hope and whatever in girls about their relationships.

I glanced at Boris who just so happen to be sitting next to me and showed him what I had hidden in my coat pocket. His previously bored out his mind face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw what I had in my hands.

At first I did sort of worry that Mia and Lil might get mad at the two of us for playing a video game during their lunch time conversation, but if anything, they both seemed to be relieved that we were amusing ourselves while they took care of Tina.

They're surprisingly good at it, taking care of someone, making them feel better about themselves, when they work together. They made up a list for Tina something about Romantic Heroines and the Valuable Lesson they taught us or something along those lines.

After reading that Tina seemed to calm down and concede that yeah, it probably was Dave's fault for their break up, along with some of her own.

I was just thinking that I might actually been able to spend some quality time with my girlfriend, except that another drama broke out at the table.

"I'm trying out for cheerleading." This was from Shameeka. She looked sort of nervous and excited at the same time as she looked around the table at all the open mouths staring back at her. Well, everyone but mine and Boris's. Boris was too involved in the game by this point in time and me, I didn't really see an issue with her trying out for cheerleading, it might, if she gets in, balance out the status quo with the squad… or she could just end up becoming like them, which is what I think all the girls' here fear will eventually happen.

Mia looked particularly horrified at the idea of Shameeka joining the squad, though I can understand, very well in fact, why that is. She is, after all, out of all the girls present at the table, the main victim of Lana and her fellow witches. I don't really understand why that is, why Mia is victimised by the cheerleaders more than any of the other girls here, but I have the funniest feeling that it has something to do with Lil.

Anyway, I don't actually see Shameeka falling into the grips on the dark side, mainly due to her response to Lil's rather rude comment of why the hell she would want to do a thing like that, in which Shameeka very calmly responded with this answer.

"Because I'm tired of letting Lana and her friends push me around. I am just as good as any of them. Why shouldn't I try out for the squad, even if I'm not in their little clique? I have just as good a chance of getting on the team as anybody else."

The other girls were slowly nodding their heads, though of course; still worried about their friend they were at least now coming around to the idea. Well, all except Lil, of course, who was prepping herself for a fight.

Rolling my eyes I went back to watching Boris battle it out with my game.

I wasn't interested in cheerleading anyway, if Shameeka got on the squad, good for her, if she didn't well, there is always next year.

I tuned out of the rest of the cheerleading debate, though I knew, by the end of lunch that the idea of Shameeka joining the squad was more or less accepted by the group of girls. They weren't exactly happy about it, for obvious reasons, cheerleaders were, after all, their main enemies, the group that pick and bullied them the most out of every other cliché group in the whole school. So of course they would have some hesitation and reserve to allow one of their own to go and join the hornet nest.

I would have been too, if I was in their situation. Luckily for me, I'm not; no, instead all I have to worry about is the fact that my two best friends have both got the hots for my third best friend who is more or less oblivious to their feeling for her or rather, she is forcing herself to be oblivious to them. Still trying to figure out if that really is the smartest of thing Jude could possibly be doing in this situation. I mean, I get her whole not wanting to hurt either of them, so is pretending not to notice but that, in truth, is only going to make the two of them simply try harder. But what really amazes me is the fact that the two of them are both oblivious to the fact that they both like the same girl. They have no idea! And I have no idea how to tell them, not sure if that will make the situation better or worse.

Anyway, just before lunch ended I managed to snag some alone time in an empty stairwell with Mia, because it honestly did feel like forever since the last time I had kissed her and I wanted to make sure that I was completely forgiven for being such a jerk to her last night, though she had looked rather confused when I called myself that when I apologized to her about it.

"Why are you sorry?" she asked, "I was being a pain."

"More you were using avoidance techniques on me," I paused for a moment, "you're still not going to tell me exactly what's happening Friday night, are you?" She shook her head.

"I'm working on getting out of it though." She reassured me.

"It's Thursday." I reminded her gently. She got a stubborn look in her eye that was another new quirk of hers.

"I know but I have powers that be on my side." She informed me slyly and I couldn't help but laugh and then kiss her warmly.

I never realised that kisses from the right person could be intoxicating, but that was how Mia's felt to me, intoxicating. I could quite happily live on simply her kisses alone.

I ran my fingers through her hair, which had grown out some while she was over in Genovia, while Mia's arms were wrapped securely around my neck.

We were just settling down into a pretty good make out session when the final bell for the ending of lunch rang out through the school.

"Class," Mia mumbled, quite unwillingly against my lips.

"Mmm hmmm." I replied.

"Or how bout, stairwell will be flooded with students in about five seconds." We heard Lars call up to us, sounding amused.

We jumped apart, though I still kept a hold of her hand, running my other one quickly through her hair, where I had messed it up.

"You know, no matter what you do, it's not going to behave the way you want it too." Mia informed me after a couple of seconds of my trying to get her hair to behave itself.

"And here was me thinking that was only Moscovitz hair." I said, giving up on the attempt of getting her hair in order. It still looked good to me, so what really was the problem?

"Oh yeah, the hissy fits you and Lil used to throw whenever your mom tried to brush either of your hair." She giggled as we walked out into the corridor, ignoring the surprised and curious looks sent in our direction.

I pulled a face at her.

"Ok, in my defence, I was eleven the last time that happen." I grumbled and she giggled some more.

"Hey!" I said poking her side, "Lil still throws a hissy fit whenever her hair is threaten with a brushing."

"I know. I really need to video tape one of those occurrences."

"Why don't you?" I asked as we walked into G&T, where Lil was already sitting, working on her next episode of _Lilly Tells It Like It Is_ or she might be working on what she was planning on saying tomorrow at her breakfast meeting. Wasn't sure, didn't care.

"Because she'll kill me." Mia replied with sincerity.

"You can come hide out in my room." I replied as I pulled out her seat for her before sitting beside her.

"Then she'll kill you too." Mia said and there was actually worry in her voice as she said that.

"Who am I killing and why?" Lil demanded from Mia's other side.

"Go back into Lilly world, Lil. You're not killing anyone." I said and she rolled her eyes back at me but actually did what I asked and returned to her own little world that she ruled.

"I still don't think it would be a good idea." Mia mumbled as she pulled out her Algebra books along with this notebook that she carries around with her everywhere. I'm fairly certain it is her diary, though I have never got any confirmation of that from either Mia or Lil.

I swear, there are times when I would love to get my hands on that notebook, especially last month, when I was filled with all that doubt and anger and insecurity about everything that I had and didn't have with Mia.

It had been so tempting to have a peek into those pages during those few rare times that Mia had left it unattended. I never did though, that diary was Mia's personal space from the rest of the world, her space to write all her hopes, dreams, doubts and insecurity. I had no right to read it, no matter how depressed and desperate I was during that time.

"Just think of the blackmail material you would have though." I reminded her with a grin, which caused her to giggle while Lil shot us suspicious looks.

I helped Mia with her Algebra homework for about half an hour. She still having a lot of trouble with it but she was far better than when we first started these tutoring session. For the rest of the time after that I went on to my new laptop while Mia wrote in her diary.

Honestly the amount of words that can come out of that pen as she writing is amazing.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So that was short chapter 9. I wanted to get onto Friday, so I didn't spend much time on Thursday. And Friday is a lot of fun as you might guess. Three more chapters left of this fic... well two official chapters and an extra chapter at the end, that will link the months between book 4 and 5 together. Just little details that are mention in the books and in these fics that I'm throwing into this little extra chapter so that book 5 doesn't have so many random, sudden moments in it. Anyway, you'll see when we get there.  
>Just to let you all know, it might be awhile between the end of this fic and the start of book 5, because I'm going away for a little while. I'm leaving on the 13th of the this month and will be gone until just before Christmas, so not too long, but I'm just letting you all know so you don't think I've died or just given up on <strong>The Fifth Note of SkinnerBx<strong> or anything like that, I'm just going somewhere that the likelihood of internet is low (aka this place is known as Grandmparents domain.).  
>I might also be gone from here for a couple of weeks in Jan, so again don't freak out or anything.<br>Hope you all enjoyed and I'll update with Chapter 10 tomorrow sometime.

**P.S.** I'm sorry to everyone who is reading this and is finding Michael a little too romantic in this, when in the books Mia doesn't think that he is, but you have to remember with Mia, especially with the early books, is very much a Romance novel Romantic.  
>I think that Michael is quite romantic, in his own way and that his romantic side really only comes out for her, when he's with her and <em>only<em> at certain moments in time.  
>It just that when he does do romantic things for Mia, while she might be extremely happy that he's done whatever romantic thing he's done, to her, they at times, still don't fall into a Romance Novel version of Romance, which she, in the early books and at times through the later ones, is searching for in her relationship with him, completely missing what she has with Michael is quite romantic and is also far more realistic then some of the stuff that happens in romance novels.<br>What I want to do with these fics is to show all the different sides of Michael when he's with different people in his life and with Mia. I think, he does try to make himself romantic for Mia, it just that he's version of romance is quite different to the romance that are in the Romance books that Mia and Tina read. Also it's fun writing him being affectionate with Mia, when in the later books, it's mainly focuses on him not being around or them fighting over something or other. I want to show them, in these fics, as a normal couple who have a very deep, very real love for each other.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

I knew, almost the moment that I stepped into the limo, I knew. I knew that she wouldn't be able to come tonight.

My stomach did an unhappy somersault but I pushed it aside because, however much, I felt sick in my gut, it was nothing compared to Mia's face, which was beyond miserable.

At least I finally found out what she was actually doing tonight. She was going to a ball. No, I'm completely serious. She is going to a real Ball! This was the reason why her Grandmother pulled her out of second period, to go get her fitted for a dress.

I felt a little better as I listened to her, not because I knew the reason of why she couldn't go out tonight, no I was still bummed out about that, but it was because of the faces she was pulling as she spoke about the ball, and her dress and about how she's only going because her grandmother wants to show her off like a show dog or something to her arch rival, Contessa Trevanni, the woman who organised the whole Ball.

If I wasn't so bummed out, I would have been laughing.

"I am sorry." Once she had finished.

I pulled a face at her before moving from where I usually sat beside Lars, to sit beside her because Lil was at her breakfast meeting this morning.

Lars shot me a sympathetic look.

"Mia, you have nothing to be sorry about." A bit more noticed would have been nice, but I wasn't going to hold that against her, considering how hard she had tried to get out of going to this Black and White Ball thing.

When she twisted her head around to face me, I saw that she didn't believe me.

"No, really, Mia." I said, wrapping my arm around her and kissing the side of her head fondly. "I understand. You're a princess. Duty comes first."

I heard her making a huffing noise at that, but she snuggled into my side none the less.

"I'll try and get out of the ball early." She said as we got out of the limo when we arrived at school.

"Only if you can." I said. I didn't want her sneaking out of this ball and getting herself into trouble because of it. "But if you can, you should try and stop by mine." My mind was already working at full gear, trying to work out the small details of my back up plan for this evening.

I noticed her face becoming worried but I didn't have time to ask her about it because I was asked to come to the admin office where they wanted help installing a new printer there.

Rolling my eyes, I gave Mia a quick peck on her cheek before following the kid who had delivered the message about the printer to me.

They installed the printer the wrong way. It took me all of homeroom and some of first period to fix up the mess they had made.

"Next time, just ask me first before trying to do this yourselves." I said, sighing heavily to the women in admin, all of whom nodded in agreement with me

Stretching my arms above my head and started making my way for English only to run into Lil who had only just arrived.

"Mom and Dad are going to be so pleased to hear about this." I commented once I saw her. She stuck her tongue out at me.

"How did it go? Your breakfast meeting?" I asked as I walked her to the admin office where I had just left.

"The meeting went great!" she said looking very proud and smug with herself.

"Did they agree to apologize to you or whatever it was that you wanted from them?"

"Nope, better than that."

I waited a moment before, waving my hand for her to continue.

"And that would be?"

"They're going to option my show."

"Really? Seriously?" Why they must have been desperate to get her out of there if they're willingly going to option her show. Makes me wonder what her original demands had been, for them to offer her this.

"Anyway, what are you doing out of class?" Lil asked as she got late note written up for her from one of the ladies behind the admin desk.

"He fixed our printer for us." The lady who was writing up Lil's late note explained. She gave me a warm smile. "Thanks Michael."

I went a little red and said it was no problem.

"Keep this up and you'll get a job with Uncle Matthew and his IT Company." Lil teased while bells went off in my head.

"He'd borrowed our _Star __Wars_ DVDs' hasn't he?" I asked, the gears in my head turning even faster.

"Ah, yeah, he did. Why?"

"I gotta go." I said walked towards the Gym.

"Michael, your English classroom isn't that way!" Not that it matter because class was just about to end anyway. "Michael, why?" I heard her screeching after me but I ignored her as I ran for the pay phones outside the gym door.

Shoving a five dollar note into the pay phone I dialled Uncle Matthew.

'Hello Mattew Hewitt speaking, how can I…'

"Hey Uncle Matt."

'Oh hey, Michael, what's up? Please tell me you've finally decided that school really isn't the place for you and you want to get a job with us?'

"Um, not quite." I said laughing because Uncle Matt asks me this just about every time he sees me, "No, I was wondering if you could possibly drop off our _Star Wars_ DVDs over at ours sometime tonight."

'You having a marathon with the girls, are you?' I don't know whether to be amused or not by the fact that even family friends now just how often Mia is over at ours and how much she loves _Star Wars_ too.

"Yeah, something like that."

'Ok, I'll do my best, alright. I'm rather busy around here at the moment, but how bout I drop by home during my lunch break and then after work, I'll drop them around yours, how is that?'

"That would be great, thanks so much Matt."

'No problem. So, can I ask you something?'

"I'm not leaving school Uncle Matt. I'm graduating in May anyway."

'Nah, not that. I was just wondering if what you're father has been saying is really true.' I started cringing.

"What's he been saying?" I asked cautiously.

'Just that you've finally got your act together and that you and Mia are finally together.'

I thumped my head against the wall beside the phone.

'I'll take that as a yes.' Matt said sounding gleeful. 'Alright, I'll drop the DVDs over at yours ASAP. See ya Michael.'

"Bye Uncle Matt." I said with a groan before I hung up.

Great so even Uncle Matt knew something was going on between Mia and me. Fantastic! He was going to tease me for months for this!

"Michael?" I nearly had a heart attack as I spun around to see Gupta standing behind me. I expected her to be pissed. I mean I was late for class and I was using the pay phone that was only meant to be used at Lunch time or in emergency. But instead of being pissed and yelling her head off at me, she simply sighed and said.

"Michael, admin is having trouble with their computers."

"Right." I said and immediately started heading for Admin. "You know," I said as I turned back to her, "I really should get paid in more than just chocolate bars for all the work I do around here with the computers. How about putting me on the payroll?" I asked cheekily and Gupta simply rolled her eyes at me.

"Very funny Michael. And remember, this is actually punishment for what you did at the end of last year." I gave her a blank look.

"What did I do?"

"You hit Mr. Richter during the last week of school."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that." I admitted sheepishly. "So, being on the payroll…."

"Not a happening thing. However, getting your hands on the school's full collection of Isaac Asimov might be." My face immediately brighten.

"Seriously?"

"If you promise not to hit Josh Richter, no matter what the reason," she gave me a long look, "you continue to fix the schools computers for as long as you are here and you don't miss a single day of school for the rest of term til your graduation, consider them yours, free of charge."

"More or less. I still have to work for them." She gave me one of her best principle smiles before heading off for her office while I went back to Admin, the ladies there almost crying at the sight of me.

* * *

><p>"Where have you been all morning?" Paul asked me as we walked into the Chem.<p>

"All over the place." I replied feeling completely exhausted.

"Were you fixing all the computers in the school again?" Felix asked curiously.

"Uh huh. I wish they'd stop calling for IT guys to come in, they keep stuffing everything up." I groaned. "Or importantly, I wish that the admin staff stop trying to fix the computers themselves." I cringed in memory of the Admin's printer that I just managed to save this morning.

"You seriously need to get paid for all the shit you do around here." Felix commented.

"I told Gupta that."

"And what did she say."

"No, but if I follow a couple of strict rules the complete school collection of all Isaac Asimov works are mine by graduation."

"What makes you think that Gupta will graduate you?" Felix teased.

"Yeah, she might hold you back a year so as to have another year of your computer magic." Paul laughed.

I glared at both of them while Judith softly giggled.

"Besides all that, how are things looking for tonight?" Jude asked and I immediately groaned, my head falling onto my crossed arms.

"Aw, that good huh." Felix said patting my back.

"Plan B?" Paul asked.

I lifted my head from my arms and nodded, sighing.

"What she doing?" Felix asked curiously.

"Going to a ball." I replied.

"The Black and White Ball held by Contessa Trevanni?" Jude asked and we all stared at her with wide mouths.

She went red and looked a little annoyed.

"Stop looking at me like that." She growled at us.

"But-but, how did you know?" I asked bewildered and she hit me over the head with her text book.

"Ow!"

"Ok, as much fun as it is to watch you hit Michael over the head all day, would you mind answering his question before you continue on with it?" Felix asked.

"Hey!" I said but was ignored by my three so called best friends.

"Oh, there's no real story behind my knowing about it. I mean, I don't know about it because I'm going to it but I have a friend who is and she told me, so you know girl gossip. Also I heard that Lana Weinberger was going too."

"Oh great." I said sarcastically, thinking about Mia and Lana being stuck at a ball, together, and all the many things that could happen there between them. This could only go well.

Another thought came to me which caused me to shudder, "is Richter going too?" because that would so make things all the more worse for Mia.

Jude thought for a moment before shaking her head.

"I don't believe so."

"Good." I said with a sigh of relief.

Our Chem lesson was slow today, so the four of us spent most of the lesson talking about our still unnamed band.

"So who is actually in it?" Jude asked, she only knew of us being in it and that the whole band idea had been mine, but that was basically as much as she knew.

"Um, us," She rolled her eyes at that and waved her hand at me to get on with it, "Trevor, you know from English…"

"Doesn't he play the trumpet in the school's marching band?" she asked amused.

"Yeah, but he can also play the guitar pretty well, so that's what's he's doing with us." Felix explained.

"And with have Boris of electric violin." And just as I expected, she started giggling.

"I'm sorry, but Boris?"

"I know, right. We had the same reaction." Felix said with a snort, while Paul shook his head, laughing quietly.

I glared at all three of them.

"He's a good musician and a good guy." I defended him hotly and not because he was my sister's boyfriend, but because he seriously is good at what he does and he is an all round pretty good guy.

"I know, I'm sorry." Jude apologized. "So, what are you two playing?" she asked turning to Paul and Felix, which quickly turned out to be a mistake on her part because they started fighting over which was the true glue of a band, the drums or keyboard.

"You've done it now." I muttered to her and she simply stared at the two ripping into each other in disbelief and guilt.

* * *

><p>"You're going to have to do something about that, you know?" I muttered as we headed for our next class, which luckily neither Paul nor Felix were in with us.<p>

She pulled a face at me.

"Do I have to? Can't I just pretend to be oblivious to it until we graduate and escape this hell hole?"

"That's four months and then there's the summer break before we're off to college. That's a long time to act oblivious." I pointed out and she scowled.

"Argh! Why can't I just be invisible again?" She growled furiously as she slammed her bag down upon her desk at the back of the classroom.

"You were never invisible to Paul." I reminded her. "It's Felix who didn't notice you before."

"Then why can't we return to that? Paul noticing me from afar and Felix not noticing at all!"

"Because that's changing time and to my knowledge time travel hasn't yet been invented."

"Hurry up and invent it already!" she growled at me.

"You're the one who clones Fruit Flies; you invent the means for time travel."

"You're the computer geek!"

"So are you!"

"MICHAEL!" She wailed and everyone in class looked back at us weirdly.

"Fine," I said sighing, "let me get through tonight and then I'll help you with your Felix/Paul problem, ok?"

"Ok," she mumbled somewhat morbidly. "So how are you planning on working tonight?" she asked obviously desperate to steer the conversation as far away from her as fast as she possibly could.

"She comes over to mine after her ball thing and we watch _Star__Wars_ there?" I said shrugging.

"What about food? Are you going to have dinner, like you were going to do at the Screening Room?"

"Um…" I hadn't actually thought about that.

"Because I doubt they'll feeding her anything beside finger food at the Ball."

"You're probably right." I said, "I'll give Maya a call at lunch and ask her if she might possibly stop by Balducci and get some veggie burgers and chips for me for tonight."

"I think you'll actually have a better night doing this then you would have had, if you were still going to the Screening Room."

"Really?" I asked curiously.

"Yeah, you'll both be in your comfort zone. And trust me, for a first date, its helps to be in ones comfort zone."

"Ok." Because really I had very little experience with this whole dating thing, I honestly had no idea what I was doing, I had just been doing what I felt was right for both of us.

"Anything else?" I asked and Jude thought for a moment.

"I don't think so; you seemed to have covered all the major details. Just… when she does arrive, be kind."

"Oh yeah," I said sarcastically, "'cause I'm really going to start yelling at her or something." Judith gave me a deadpan looked.

"That's not what I meant… and you know it. What I meant was, when she arrives, she's probably going to be embarrassed and feeling guilty about this whole Ball thing messing up your first date, so your main job when she arrives at yours is to get her as comfortable and as relaxed as possible because she'll probably be upset and worried that you'll be mad at her."

"Why would I be mad at her?" I asked bewildered.

"Oh sweetie, I thought you understood by now. Girls and boys think very differently about the same things in their relationship. You might be more or less over this and looking for ways to get around the whole ball thing, but she's probably freaking out about whether or not you're going to dumb her over this or not."

"WHAT?" I yelled and was quickly told to shut up or get out by my teacher who actually looked startled when realised it was me he was saying it too.

"What? How can she… I mean, no seriously, how could she… that's insane!" I grappled for words but they were failing me in my disbelief at Jude's words. Jude simply shrugged.

"Girls think differently about relationships then boys. Especially girls with low self esteem."

I wanted to argue that point except that I couldn't because it was true; Mia's sense of self worth wasn't particularly high. Oh she had some self-confidence now, but her self worth was still pretty low.

I sighed, running my fingers through my hair.

"Ok." I said and nodded.

Jude smiled at me and we tried to do our work, even though we had no idea what had been said by our teacher at the beginning of class being too busy talking about our own problems.

* * *

><p>At lunch, as I past her by her locker, I gave Mia a quick kiss, telling her that I had some things to do during lunch, but that I'd see her in G&amp;T before I sprinted off for the pay phone before anyone else could grab it.<p>

Getting Maya to agree to stop by Balducci, as well as the corner store, was surprisingly easy. Or nor surprising, since I had said the magic word almost immediately into our conversation and she was agreeable to do whatever I wanted, even extra, promising to get all the ingredients for ice-cream sundaes.

I swear life is made so much easier when your girlfriend is basically liked by everyone of importance in your life. As you might have guessed, the magic word is Mia. Like with my parents, Mia is Maya's favourite out of the three of us. And I honestly don't blame her or them for that. Mia is my favourite out of the three of us.

I would have sat with Mia during G&T, but Boris was worrying about his part in the band. He was worrying that he might let us all down and that he wasn't good enough to a part of the band. HA! He's like the best musician out of all of us.

And I told him that.

I also told him that this was mainly just for fun and that if I didn't think or want him in the band, I wouldn't have asked him to be in it. He then asked the absurd thing of "You didn't just ask me to be nice because I'm dating your sister?"

I quickly informed him that no, that wasn't it at all. I would have still invited him to join the band even if he wasn't dating my sister.

He seemed to be greatly cheered by this, before asking me what we were actually planning on calling ourselves. I simply groaned and he quickly dropped the topic.

* * *

><p>"What are you up to?" Lil asked after dinner. Well, after mom, dad and Lil's dinner, I wasn't eating until Mia got here.<p>

"Huh?" I was looking over our _Star__Wars_ DVDs', checking for any scratches that might have occurred during their time with Uncle Matt. Doubtful, because he's oppressive compulsive with technology of any kind, but still it was something to do and it kept my mind of the time which was 7.30, not that I was checking my watch or anything like that. 7.30 and 5 seconds.

"What are you doing?" Lil asked again, sounding exasperated.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Being obsessive compulsive."

"Fraid there's only one of those in this family, Lil and it's not me." I gave her a pointed look and she made a rude hand sign back at me.

"So?" she asked after a few moments and I sighed.

"Since she can't go to the Screening Room, I'm bringing the Screening room to her… If she comes."

"She will." Lil said calmly and I looked at her.

"Seriously?" Lil rolled her eyes.

"God, you're both as bad as each other. Honestly, you two are made for each other!" She grumbled in exasperation. "And I mean that too." she added.

"That we're as bad as each or…"

"That you are meant to be together, yes that. Though, you are as bad as each other too. Honestly," she said and shook her head before looking down at me with a sly grin, "she was worried that you were going to ask Judith Gershner to go with you to the Screening Room tonight because she couldn't come."

My mouth dropped in disbelief.

"What? Why?" Lil shrugged.

"I don't know. I mean, you two do hang out together a lot and you do have a lot in common, so." she shrugged again while I just shook my head. I like Jude, I really do, but… hello Mia. Mia wins hands down against every single woman in the world in regards to me. Why couldn't she see that?

"I think this is a really sweet idea." Lil said suddenly, drawing me out of my mental debate.

"Huh?"

"This whole set up. It's a good idea." Lil said.

"Thanks." She went a little red in the face.

"I'm going to be spending my evening in the kitchen and then later my room working on my show, so you know, I won't be around to bother you two or anything." She informed me, a formal note to her voice which made me laugh.

"Thanks Lil."

"Everything will be fine." She told me. "Tonight will go well and you two will be sickening together."

I smiled up at her, grateful for her words and for her acceptance of this whole thing with Mia. I mean, I know she said way back in early December that we, Mia and I, had given her plenty of time to get used to the whole we liked each other, but that didn't mean that all the weirdness of this was completely gone.

"Lil?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you sure you're ok with this? My being with Mia I mean?"

"Would it really matter if I wasn't? Like would you seriously stop dating Mia because I wasn't happy about it?" she asked with a teasing smile.

I thought for a moment, actually torn. I mean, being with Mia is something that I have wanted for a while, but if being with her meant messing up hers and Lil's friendship…

"Ok, that wasn't meant for you to start double guessing yourself, you know," Lil laughed. "Michael, I'm fine with it, ok. Honestly, I am. I mean, it is weird at times, but most of the time, I don't really notice because beside from the kissing, you two are basically acting the same way as you did with each other at the end of last year and when we were younger. Getting along with each other, just now with the kissing on the side." She shrugged.

"So you're fine."

"I'm fine. Though," and she started to smile wickedly now, "if you hurt her, I'll happily break your face." She informed me cheerfully before skipping off for the kitchen.

I sighed heavily as I watched her go before setting up the first _Star__Wars_ movie in our DVD player. I then sat on the couch with a Terry Pratchett _Discworld_ book, waiting for Mia to arrive.

At around twenty past eight Pavlov, who had been sleeping by my feet for the last hour, suddenly stirred and became restless. One minute late the door bell rang and Pavlov bounded off the couch, barking his head off with me almost falling off after him. Wow, when I looked at the clock again (because I was fairly sure it was her because who else but her can get that sort of reaction out of Pavlov?), she did managed to get out early. I honestly wasn't expecting her until close to ten or even eleven o'clock tonight.

After a moment of straightening myself out, feeling slightly embarrassed that I hadn't changed out of my old jeans and Boomtown Rats T-shirt, but I honestly thought I would have more time. But nothing to be done about it now and headed for the door, opening it and then forcing myself to not let my mouth drop to the floor because of the sight of her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

If her going to Balls means that she has to dress like that, then she should seriously go to them more often, because she was simply stunning.

Cultural Diversity Dance, Non-Denomination Winter Dance, Halloween? Those dress… yeah, nothing compared to this one… though I am still particularly fond of the green dress that she wore to the Winter dance.

But anyway, this one that she had on was completely breath-taking. It was pure white but with a sort of silver glint to it that made her eyes somehow stand out even more, in a good way. It hugged her very close around her chest and torso before falling heavily from her waist down, completely covering and hiding her feet. There were these small glints of light that flickered all over the dress which took me a moment to realize that they were crystals or possibly even diamonds that had been sewn into her gown.

Her hair had been curled and styled in a way that you would never think that her hair spends most of its time in a triangular shape.

But what was on top of her head was actually the most daunting thing of all. The thing that really struck home to me that she really was a Princess of a country and how completely unrealistic it was for me to hope that this relationship really had any chance at all.

On top of her head, placed carefully upon her elegant hair style was a glittering, diamond (and they weren't small either, some were a big as my thumb!) tiara.

I had never seen her with her tiara on and now that I had, I felt a little winded. So winded, I almost completely missed her swallowed a sock expression on her face.

She seemed to notice that my eyes seemed to be particularly focused on that spot of her head, because she quickly whipped it off her head, so that she now twirled it between her hands.

"Well, I'm here." She sounded a little winded herself and I could hear nerves in her voice too. Damn, what had Jude been telling me this afternoon to do when Mia got here?

"Oh, hey," look, I have a voice, "come in, you look…" or not, "you look really beautiful." And then I went back to simply starring at her, because my brain just couldn't focus past the fact of how beautiful she was.

It was only when I heard Lars chuckling behind her did my brain actually decide to start working again.

Clearing my throat as I stepped back, making room for them both to come inside, I said to Lars.

"Lars, my mom and dad are in the living room watching Dateline, if you want to go join them." Lars looked delighted and headed off for the living room where I heard my parents greeting him cheerfully.

Dammit, what had Jude said! Why couldn't I remember? Dammit and it was important too! Oh forget it… which I had… and just move on.

"Well, did you eat yet? Because I've got some veggie burgers…" why is she looking at the floor? God, wait, was she going to tell me that while she was at this Ball, she met someone else?

Oh God! Oh shit!

"Um, I don't know." She replied slowly. I notice she was hunching herself close together within her dress. "If you're having one, I guess."

"Ok." Because I couldn't think of anything else to say because I was starting to freak out that she might be getting ready to dump me. Somewhere in the back of my head a voice was calling me an idiot but I ignored it, though I couldn't stop myself from reaching over and grabbing hold of one of her hands and pulling her, by it, to the kitchen. Where Lil was, working on her story boards for her latest episode of _Lilly__Tells__It__Like__It__Is_ that I know she was planning on filming tomorrow.

"Jeez," she said when she looked up as we walked in. "What happen to you?" which is a little mean, but she sounded more startled then trying to be actually rude. "You look like you swapped outfits with the Sugar Plum Fairy." Ok, so that was rude.

I shot her a very dry look.

"I was at a ball." Mia explained or reminded her or whatever.

"Oh, of course. The ball. Well, if you ask me, the Sugar Plum Fairy got the better deal. But I'm not supposed to be here. So don't mind me."

"We won't." I reassured her as I moved around the kitchen, reheating the food that I had prepared earlier for Mia's arrival.

I didn't let Mia help me, even though she knew as well as I did where everything in the kitchen was, so she simply stood back and watched me, which actually made me feel better because she seemed to be relaxing now and becoming comfortable and my fears of her dumping me because she met someone else tonight suddenly appeared incredibly stupid.

After I was done getting everything together, going back and forth between the kitchen and the den as I took all the necessary stuff from one to the other, I picked up our two plates of veggie burgers and chips, nodded my head towards the den and said "come on," to Mia, who looked confused but did as I asked.

Out of the comer of my eye I saw Lil give me thumbs up before returning to her work.

As soon as we entered the den, I went over to put the two plates of food down on the two fold out tables that I had set up earlier in front of the black leather couch, across the room from our thirty-two-inch Sony TV, which was cheerfully displaying the _Star__Wars_ title image, frozen there because I had paused it there.

Mia looked around, looking quite startled but what she was seeing.

"Michael," she started slowly, "What _is_ this?"

"Well, you couldn't make it to the Screening Room," I explained, slowly because it was now becoming obvious that even though she did manage to come over here earlier than expected, she was still extremely tired from the ball, "So I brought the Screening Room to you. Come on, let's eat. I'm starved." Because honestly, I was. I hadn't eaten dinner or lunch because I had been so busy trying to organize this for her.

I flopped down on to the couch and made to for some chips just as she said, sounding completely stunned.

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You aren't breaking up with me?" my head immediately jerked in her direction, staring at her in disbelief. Wait, what? Something from Jude's and mine conversation from forth period suddenly came back to me.

_Oh sweetie, I thought you understood by now, girls and boys think very differently about the same things in their relationship. You might be more or less over this and looking for ways to get around the whole ball thing, but she's probably freaking out about whether or not you're going to dumb her over this or not._

She actually thought that… seriously?

"Break up with you?" it was hard not to gag as I spoke, as I tried to get my head around how she could get _that_ idea into her head, "Why would I do that?" and here was I flipping out about the possibility that she might be dumping me sometime in the near future. But instead, she was actually thinking that _I_ was going to dump _her_!

"Well," she was looking extremely embarrassed now and once more staring at the floor, her tiara in her hands twirling faster and faster within them. "When I told you I couldn't make it tonight you… well, you seemed kind of distant…"

Now I was remembering something Lil had said to me back at Grandma's and Pop's condo, the night of my birthday, about my having this look that made me appear angry or annoyed about something. That I sort of shut down when I get it. Dammit, I was going to have to watch that.

"I wasn't distant. I was trying to figure out what we could do instead of, you know, going to the movie."

"But then you didn't show up for lunch…" Lil's right, we really are as bad as each other.

"Right, I had to call and order the veggie burgers, get Maya to go to the store and get the rest of the stuff. And my dad had loaned our _Star__Wars_ DVD to a friend of his, so I had to call him and make him get it back."

I sort of felt bad for her then, she looked so deflated from what I was telling her, it made me wonder just how much she had been stressing over this, this past week.

"So… you don't want to break up?" is wrong to be mad at her when I heard this note of hopefulness in her voice, like she really had thought that I was going to break up with her over this tiny obstacle? As if I would have let this tiny thing ruin something that we've both wanted for a long, long time!

"No, I don't want to break up." Ever, I added silently to myself. "Mia, I love you, remember?" Because I was suddenly worried that she might have forgotten that. When was the last time I told her that I loved her?

Actually I don't think I have, not out loud, at least, I don't think. I mean, I did in that poem in the program I created for her and I've thought it to her often, but I don't think I've ever actually said it to her face. "Why would I want to break up with you? Now come and sit down and eat before it gets cold." I was feeling like an idiot now, annoyed at myself for allowing this to happen, for allowing her to feel all that doubt that she had obviously been feeling about our relationship and my feelings for her.

She continued to stand there, even after I hit play and the first chords of John Williams's brilliant _Star__Wars_ theme started to fill the room.

"Mia, come on." Because she was starting to worry me again, "Unless you want to change out of that dress first." Which would be a shame because she really was stunning in that gown, but I didn't want to see it destroyed because it got ketchup and mayo all over it. "Did you bring any normal clothes." Which is a stupid question because Mia actually has clothes here, in Lil's room because she is over here so much.

Instead of answering my question, she instead asked me a question that would have had most guys bolting out of the room faster than a speeding bullet.

"Do you love me like a friend? Or are you _in_ love with me?" I'm honestly thinking of murdering the people who help Mia developed this ridiculously low self-esteem that she has for herself. But I think that would actually involve murdering a whole heap of extremely important people from all around the world, so…

I just stared at her for a moment, still trying to get my head around the fact that she actually felt the need to ask me that, the need to have my feelings for her clarified for her even now.

I'm not good with words.

In complete truth, I completely suck with saying what I really want to say, especially to her, which is probably why we're in this situation right now.

So instead of speaking and probably making the whole situation worse, I simply twisted slightly in my seat, reaching out and taking her still twirling tiara from between her fingers, ignoring the electric shock that passed between us and carefully set it down beside me on the couch, before taking (or rather swamping) her hands in mine, gave her a gentle tug and gave her an extremely long kiss. Of the French variety.

We completely missed the entire scrolling prologue to the movie, only breaking apart when the sounds of Princess Leia's starship was being fired upon and that was only because we both needed air, otherwise I'm pretty sure we would have just kept going. No complaints here.

I let go of her hands and instead cupped her face and said, "Of course I'm in love with you." I thought you knew that. How can I possibly love anyone else but you? "Now come sit down and eat." I gave her a quick kiss, before grabbing one of her hands again and pulling her around the couch and forced her to sit down beside me.

"Your burger is getting cold." I said and she beamed back at me and I felt this huge weight lift off my chest. Weight continuing to lift as once we finished our food, Mia curled up on the couch and snuggled in close to my side as we both quoted lines, on cue, from the movie.

I admit, even though I was paying some attention to the movie, enough to quote lines (but I've watched this movie so many times, I can recite the whole thing in my sleep,), I spent most of my time watching Mia, running my fingers through her hair, which was now falling out of is elaborate do and was simply now falling in glossy waves around her head and neck.

Every so often I kiss the back of her head, which of course had her twisting her head around for me kiss to her properly, which we would do for about five minutes before returning our attention to the movie.

Just as Luke was flying off to attack the Death Star, I put it on pause again, so that I could go and get us dessert. After a bit of struggle, which I lost, Mia helped me take the plates out to the kitchen (which was now empty of Lil and her story boards), though I didn't allow her to help with the making of the dessert.

"If I let you do it," I teased, "we'd end up with more on the bench then in the bowls."

"That's Lilly." She shot back, sticking out her tongue.

After giving up trying to make me let her help me with the sundaes, Mia headed back for the den, where I met up with her again, sundaes in hand, a few moments later. I immediately noted a small box sitting on my TV table that hadn't been there before.

I carefully handed her sundae, because she was still wearing her stunning dress, before pointing at the box and saying, "What's this?"

"It's your birthday present." How did I not see that one coming?

I sat down, feeling, I admit quite puzzled because I had no idea what she had gotten me because the box was seriously small.

I picked up the box cautiously. I could hear something small gently rattle around inside of it.

"I told you that you didn't have to get me anything." Seriously being with you is enough, better in fact, than any of the other present I received. Yes, even better than my laptop. I know, shocking right? I must love her.

"I know." She was actually bouncing up and down on the couch beside me. "But I wanted to. And I saw this, and I thought it was _perfect_." Her mood was infectious, so even though I was still bewildered by what it was that she had actually gotten me, I was excited too,

"Well… thanks." I said slowly as I opened the box and frowned.

I didn't think it was a joke, because seriously that isn't something Mia did, and I knew from experience that all her presents have some kind of meaning behind them. The problem was, her other presents, they were pretty easy to figure out what had made her think to get them for us, this? Not so much.

It was a rock, a tiny rock, no bigger than an ant. Maybe even smaller than an ant, a pinhead. But I had this strong feeling that its significance was much, much larger than either of those things. But what was it? It had a sort of weird shine to it too.

"Huh?" Damn, stupid mouth. "It's… its really nice." Again, stupid.

She laughed and not her nervous or shy laugh either, it was her laugh that she made when she was truly happy about something, which immediately made me try even harder to figure out what the significance of this rock was.

"You don't even know what it is!"

No, I don't. Clue please?

"Well," I said, feeling sheepish and slow, "No, I don't."

"Can't you guess?"

"Well, it looks like… I mean, it closely resembles… a rock." I was so missing something here. Something big. Real big!

"It _is_ a rock." She seemed to find this quite funny. I guess for her this is quite an amusing situation, for once she is the one in control of the situation, her being the one with the knowledge of what is going on.

I eyed the rock more sharply; annoyed it wasn't giving me more clues to its origin, I mean, besides the weird sort of shine to it, because apparently to Mia it was bloody obvious where it was from.

"I don't know. Genovia?" I was giving up and she looked even more amused as she shook her head.

"No, silly." She giggled. "The moon! It's a moon rock!" Say what? "From when Neil Armstrong was up there. He collected a load of them, and then some of them got split up, and Richard Nixon gave my grandmother a bunch of them when he was in office. Well, he gave them to Genovia, technically. And I saw them and thought… well, that you should have one. Because I know you like space stuff. I mean how you've got the glow-in-the-dark constellation on the ceiling over your bed and all…"

Up until this point my brain more or less stopped working, all I could do was stare down at the tiny rock that she had given me, not quite believing what I was seeing. It was only when she mention my room did I come out of my zombie state of mind.

"When were you in my room?" trying to remember when it was the last time that I had invited her into my room. The only time I could think of was after the Cultural Diversity Dance, but that was months before I had put my glow-in-the-dark star constellation up.

"Oh," her face went bright red, "a long time ago." Uh huh, sure. Little liar. But I didn't call her out on it, it wasn't like it actually mattered or anything, so I simply said, "Oh," in response before looking down at my present.

My present that had come from the moon... Oh flipping hell!

"Mia," I said urgently, "I can't accept this."

She looked startled and a little hurt.

"Yes, you can. There are plenty left back in the palace museum, don't worry. Richard Nixon must have really had a thing for Grandmere, because I'm pretty sure we got more moon rocks than Monaco or anybody else." She didn't get it. She didn't understand the actual reason behind my inability to accept this gift.

"Mia." I said, "It's a rock. From the _moon_."

"Right?" she was looking uncertain and worried now.

I tried again to explain.

"It's a rock that came from two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles away. Two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles away from our planet." And you've just given it away as a birthday present to your nobody boyfriend!

"Yes." She was looking almost sick with worry now. Great work, Moscovitz! "Michael, if you don't like it, I can give it back." And risk being caught? You could so tell she didn't get this by legal means, which is another part of the problem of her just _giving_ this precious little rock to me, "I just thought – " she started to reach for it, as if she really was about to take it back.

I immediately jerked my hand and the little box containing the precious little rock with it away from her.

"No way! You're not getting this back." I was going to keep this, no matter what the consequences might be. Heck, there could be none at all. They seriously might not notice one little rock missing from their display… fingers crossed "I just don't know what I'm going to get you for your birthday. This is going to be a hard act to follow?"

"Oh, that." She said and suddenly she was smiling this almost vixenish smile at me. "You can just write me another song."

So she finally got it. Finally, she understood that a 'Tall Drink of Water' was actually about her.

I smiled at her and she beamed even more widely back at me, which of course made me want to kiss her, so after I gently placed the lid back on the box and setting it on the TV table, I quickly gathered her up into my arms and kissed her warmly.

We had to stop shortly though because of the threat of our sundaes melting on us.

We happily ate our sundaes and watched the rest of the movie.

When the credits rolled around and we were clearing up our sundae bowls, Mia suddenly said, "Oh, I thought of a name for your band."

I gave her a pleading look.

"Not," I groaned, "the X-Wing Fighters. I beg you."

"No," she said sounding a tiny bit irritated. "Skinner Box." I looked up from stacking the dishwasher in surprise, because honestly, I would never have thought of that. Not because it isn't a good name, in fact it's a brilliant one.

"Skinner Box." I rolled it over my tongue carefully and immediately liked how it sounded.

"Yeah." Mia said and she was smiling again. "I mean, I figured, since you named your dog Pavlov…"

Exactly, how the heck didn't I think of Skinner Box myself?

"I kind of like it." I said, more than liked, it was the name I wanted to name my band, "I'll see what the guys say."

She was beaming all over again and then we were kissing all over again. I can kind of see a pattern here.

* * *

><p>Another pattern I see forming is her disappearing off to the bathroom to go write in that journal of hers.<p>

Not that I actually mind, writing in her journal is her thing, it just, I have enough already to compete with without adding an inanimate object to my list. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to add it anyway.

Anyway, Mia disappeared into our bathroom for about half an hour, to change out her ball gown into a pair of pajamas that she has over here and to brush her teeth because she has a tooth brush here too.

I wasn't overly bothered by her disappearing act to the bathroom, but Lil was and after half an hour, she was banging on the bathroom door, demanding to know if she was bulimic or something.

After a moment where in Mia opened the bathroom door, I heard Lil grumble, all crabby like (Lil really isn't a late night or an early morning person), "Do you mean to say you've been in here for the past half-hour writing in your journal?"

I had thought, at this point, it might be good idea to try and save Mia from Lil. So I ducked out of my room and headed towards them, only for Lil to grumble "And you _still_ haven't figured out what you're good at?" before storming off when Mia shook her head in response. What was all that about? And I asked Mia that when I came to her side, wrapping my arm around her waist.

"Oh," Mia said as she ducked her journal into this beaded bag that she had been wearing with her ball gown that was now draped over her arm, "she's just mad because I haven't figured out what my secret talent is."

"Your what?" I asked curiously.

"My secret talent." She looked embarrassed as she spoke, her cheeks taking on this rosy colour. "It's just that you and Lilly, you're both so talented. You guys are good at so many things, and I'm not good at anything, and I sometimes feel like… well, like I don't belong." My heart restricted a little at her words. "At least not in Gifted and Talented class, anyway." She finished off with this little dejected sigh.

"Mia," I said, tightening my grip around her waist, "You're totally gifted."

"Yeah," she said, with a sarcastic hint to her tone as she fingered the ball gown hanging over her arm. "At looking like a snowdrop."

"No," I said and I couldn't help but laugh, "although now that you mention it, you're pretty good at that, too." She pulled a face up at me and I laughed again, "But I meant writing."

"Huh?" she looked so bewildered. I actually felt rather privileged to be the one to enlighten her about her "secret" talent.

"Well, everyone knows that you like to write. I mean, your head is always buried in that journal. And you always get As on your papers in English. I think it's pretty obvious, Mia, that you're a writer."

She looked so surprise that I was laughing again. I tried to stop but she didn't look hurt or bothered by my laughing. Instead she was simply smiling that wonderful beautiful smile of hers.

"Grandmere isn't going to like that." She giggled as we wandered for my room, where I wanted to show her a new program that I had been working on, it was the modeling of the death of a dwarf star and possibly play her a couple of the songs that I had written for the band. Both of which Mia was pretty enthusiastic about.

"You should enter that," Mia said as she looked over my program of the dying dwarf star, "into the Science Fair in April." She told me with a wide grin.

I looked at her in surprise because honestly I only made the program to get some extra credit in my Multimedia class, but now…

"It would totally win." She informed me brightly.

"It's not quite done yet." I replied and she rolled her eyes at me, muttering something that sounded like "perfectionist, the pair of you."

"What was that?" I asked, swiveling on my computer chair to look at her sitting innocently on my bed.

"Nothing." She smiled cheekily back at me.

I gave her a skeptical look, before making it look like I was turning back around to my computer, lulling her into a sense of safety, before I lunged at her, causing her to scream and scramble to get away from me, only I was too fast, my arms wrapping around her waist and holding her tightly to me as I tickled her without mercy.

"Quit killing my best friend!" we both heard Lil yell from her room. I stopped tickling Mia and she fell in limbless heap on my bed.

"No fair," she grumbled, "you're bigger than me." I just grinned back at her, kissed her nose before getting up again and heading for my computer to show her some of the other stuff I had been working on, while she told me about the ball.

When it came close to one in the morning and Mia was actually starting to drop off to sleep, I forced myself to be responsible and make her go to Lil's room to get some much needed sleep.

"Come on. Up we get." I said as I pulled her gently to her feet with her yawning and picking up her stunning dress again.

"So is that yours to keep or do you have to return it?" I asked her as we walked to Lil's room.

"Um, I think it's mine." She said through a yawn.

"Cool. It really does look good on you."

"I look like a snowdrop." She argued and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah and the pretties snowdrop around." I replied and she smiled sleepily up at me.

"Get to bed." I said and she did so, muttering something about when Lars left earlier this evening she should have had him take her dress back with him, since he was already taking her tiara back, because now she'd have to leave in the morning to take her dress home then come back here to go bowling with Lil, Boris and me.

"Don't worry about it." I reassured her as I gave her a goodnight kiss. "Sleep well. Sweet dreams." She smiled and said you too.

"I love you." Her smile grew a little wider.

"Love you too." I kissed her again and let her go to bed before she fell asleep on her feet, it has happened, before heading back for my own room.

Once in there and I had closed my door, I pulled down a box that I had made in woodwork in my freshman year (so far the only piece of woodwork that I have ever done that actually ended up looking how it was meant to, even if it did end up being way larger than it was meant to be. Spice rack? Forget it.), from where it was half hidden at the top of my book case.

Inside of it were the photos that Lil had given me for my birthday of Mia and me, as well as some other bits and pops that Mia herself had given me over the years.

I carefully placed the box containing my moonstone into it, all the while my brain was trying to think of something of equal value and worth that I could give Mia for her birthday.

You have four months a voice said in my head.

Ah huh, I'm running out of time.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Ok, so here's chapter 11 (Sorry for the cliff-hanger at the end of chapter ten, but... chapter 10 was long enough as it was! And so, was this one! I had to cut it somewhere, lol!), essentially the end of book 4 and this fic, except that I have an extra chapter, that I will be posting up shortly.  
>Once again, if you don't hear from me for a couple weeks (basically two weeks), don't freak out or anything, I haven't died, I'm just not able to get near a computer with Internet connection where I'm going, though I am working on the no internet problem, but still don't expect any chapter for <strong>The Fifth Note of SkinnerBx<strong> until at least after Christmas. Beside the fact that it is Christmas and I want a little break from writing (I know, shocking, right?), I am having a little bit of trouble with writing book 5. It's not coming to me as easily as the other previous books have done, so because of that it might take a little bit longer to write than say this one did.  
>Anyway, I'll update with the extra chapter shortly and I'll wish you all a Merry Christmas now, because I'm leaving tomorrow (Australia's tomorrow that is) and won't be back until either the 23rd or 24th of December.<br>So not quite bye for now, but with the next chapter it will be.


	12. Extra Chapter

**Author's Note: **And here's the extra chapter everyone.  
><strong><em><strong>MERRY CHRISTMAS!<strong>_**

* * *

><p><strong>Extra Chapter<strong>

"I don't know what to do." Jude was groaning as we walked down a street one Friday March afternoon after computer club.

"Well, which one of them do you like better?" I asked. She sent me a look that clearly read that she liked them both just as much as the other.

I rolled my eyes to the heavens.

"You can't date them both. They'd kill each other for one thing." Like they weren't already trying to, I thought a little grimly. They had finally clicked that, hey, they liked the same girl.

Ok, so when I say kill, it was more they had come to an agreement or I guess you could say, a bet, which was basically this; they would use whatever means, civil and proper and all that crap to win Jude over as their girlfriend and whoever actually wins her over, the other one would step down and accepted it as the status quo.

Which for Felix to agree to something like this, is actually quite amazing and also shows just how much he does in fact like Jude.

Neither of them want to hurt Jude (just like she doesn't want to hurt either of them), so are trying to keep this whole situation as civil and friendly as possible. Only problem is the two of them are quite competitive when they actually feel like it and Jude is someone they both really want to date. This is probably why they have gotten me to stand in as referee in this bet of theirs, to make sure that neither of them does anything unhanded that could mess up the other ones chance with Jude.

Of course, as soon as I found out about this little agreement, actually I was the one who thought up the idea (Yeah, I know, I'm a flipping Genius, though would you rather have your two best friends beating the crap out of and not talking to each other instead?), I told Jude, who of course started flipping out about the whole situation. Like she was now.

"But I don't know what to do. I can't choose between them! That could totally mess up their friendship!"

"They have that agreement, remember?"

Jude pulled a face at me.

"Just because they agreed that whoever "wins" me," she pulled another face, "the other would step down and things would return to the way they were before this whole mess, doesn't mean that that will actually happen!" she ranted, kicking at the sidewalk angrily.

"It might." But I was being hopeful.

"Look, seriously, out of the two of them, who do you like better? Paul or Felix? You seemed to be pretty interested in Paul at the end of last year."

"No, I was pretty interesting in _you_at the end of last year," my face went red, but she continued on anyway, "it was only when you mention that Paul was interested in me and had been for a while, that I became interested in him."

"And Felix?" she went red in the face and I rolled my eyes. Typical girl! Always falling for the bad boy!

"Well, you're going to have to decide soon…"

"No, I don't. I mean, not really…"

"So, you're just going to lead them along for the rest of the semester?" I asked and she sighed.

"I could stop hanging out with you guys." She said, wincing. I didn't like that idea much either.

"That would probably only make it worse, they'll either blame each other or themselves or both."

"So what should I do?"

"Figure out how to tell them that you like them just as friends."

"Oh god…" she said and buried her face into her hands. I know, I was cringing as well at the thought of her giving that speech to the two of them.

"Or you could always go along with their agreement and let them take you out, you know a couple times each and then at like the end of the semester figure out which one you like better."

"So that I can go out with the one I chose for the summer and then have it all end when we both go off to college."

"You don't know that that's going to happen."

"Michael, seriously, how many high school relationships have you actually heard about, that have survived college years? Especially when the people involved in the relationship are going to different colleges? It just doesn't work."

"Wonderful." And I was suddenly no longer thinking about her relationship problems but my own. Well, not so much my relationship problems, because currently Mia and I had none, but if what Jude was saying about college was true…

"She's the best friend of your little sister; you are going to see her more often than you think you are. Plus she has her limo; she can visit you whenever she wants." Jude reminded me and I nodded, feeling a tiny bit reassured.

"Have you thought of what you want to get her for her birthday?" Jude asked, obviously trying to change the topic away from her. I shot her a look that clearly read we are so not finished with the conversation before sighing.

"No."

"Have to you asked her?"

"Yeah and she's being as difficult as me about it. Well, she has said that she wouldn't mind another song but that's about it."

"What's wrong with writing her a song? If my boyfriend… shut up, that conversation is over… wrote and played a song for me for my birthday, I would be over the moon about it."

"Yeah, but a song isn't really anything compared to a moon rock." She punched me in the arm.

"It's the thought that counts, not what it compares to or the value of it is."

"I know that. I just want to get her something… I don't know special."

"And a hand-written song from her boyfriend isn't?" Jude asked and I pulled a face at her.

"It's different. I want to get her something that when she looks at it, she'll immediately think of us and…" I trailed off because just as I was saying that something in a jewelry store that we were just walking by caught my eye.

"Michael?" Jude asked in surprise as I ducked into the store.

"Um, excuse me." I said, feeling a little nervous as I walked up to the counter were a bored looking shop assistant girl looked up at me from her magazine. "I was just wondering about the price of a necklace that you have on display out the front of your shop."

She looked me up and down, taking in my school uniform and my windblown, all time messy hair with raised, manicured eyebrows, but instead of telling me to just get lost, she did as I asked, walking around the counted and unlocked the back panel of the window display where I had seen the perfect gift for Mia.

"Which one was it?" she asked once she had the display open.

"Um, the silver snowflake please." She nodded and carefully pulled it from the stand that it had been resting on.

"It's two hundred and ninety dollars." She informed me, her eyebrows raised again as if she was expecting me, after hearing the price of the necklace, to bolt from the shop.

I just nodded.

In a sort of resigned way, she walked back, after locking the display up again, around the counter and placed the necklace down on to a velvet mat.

Carefully, fearful that I might in some way damage the tiny pendent, I picked it up and looked it over. It was a simple, but pretty snowflake design, all up about the size of my thumb nail.

It was light in my hand and it glittered slightly in the stores lights, reminding me of Mia's eyes when she was truly happy about something.

"I'll take it, but do you mind holding it for a bit for me? I can put a deposit on it today though," I added quickly when she looked at me skeptically; "I just haven't got all the money on me."

"This isn't some kind of trick is it?" she asked. "This is the only one we have of this necklace design."

"No," I said shaking my head as I pulled out my wallet, "I can put a hundred down today." I said and showed her that I could. This seemed to reassure her quite a bit.

"We can only hold it for two weeks, just so you know." She said as she plucked my deposit from my hand.

"That's fine." I said as I looked at the necklace again, feeling this great weight lift off me.

It was perfect and exactly what I had been looking for, for the past couple of months.

The shop assistant looking at me again, a slight frown between her eyes.

"Aren't you the guy who is going out with that Princess of that country that no one has heard about until her discovery?" I felt my ears grow red.

"Um, yeah I am. It's her birthday soon, so." I shrugged.

"I think she'll love it." And she gave me a genuine smile. "She seems like a sweet girl." I smiled a slow, soft smile that I always seem to start wearing whenever I think of Mia.

"Yeah, she is." I replied.

After she, her name was Lisa I found out, had taken down my details, I left the store feeling quite pleased with myself, finding Jude sitting on a bench just a little down the street, reading her Chem text book.

"You could have come in, you know." I said once I reached her.

"Nah, you needed to do that by yourself. Can't hold your hand all the time, you know." She teased.

"What about my holding your hand during this whole Felix/Paul thing?" I replied.

"Oh, you've still got to do that for me. At least until we graduate."

"Wonderful." I sighed.

"I thought about it." She said suddenly.

"Hmmm."

"About taking your advice and having a go at going out with both of them, since that's what they've more or less agreed to try with me themselves."

"You sure?"

"Uh huh. I mean, we'd all know what's going on, so it wouldn't be like cheating or being disloyal or anything like that and it simply to see…"

"Who you'd rather date."

"That sounds horrible, you know that?"

"Yeah, it does, but what else are you going to do? I mean, it's not like you haven't been wrestling with this yourself."

"It was so much easier when I was invisible." She groaned. "Or when it was just Paul who liked me."

"Because you knew that he would never actually get around to doing anything about it."

"Like you."

"Hey, I have too. I'm with Mia now, aren't I?"

"Yeah, and that was after how many months?"

"Shut up."

"God! Why did Felix have to start liking me?" she moaned. "I mean, I'm not his type or anything!"

"No, you're not." I agreed, "But you interest him. You can make him laugh and you make him think. You've opened up this whole new world inside his head."

"When he isn't stone senseless you mean." She grumbled, pulling a face. It wasn't exactly small knowledge that Jude was against both Felix drug and drinking habits. She told him that frequently. And I think he's actually starting to listen.

"Hey, you have to admit that is happening a whole lot less of late." Because of you, I thought but didn't add. She was under enough pressure as it was without her needing to know that the reason why Felix was cutting back on the drugs and alcohol was her.

I'm dreading what will happen once and that is if Jude chooses Paul over him. It won't be pretty. Heck he might actually end up in rehab, which is something that I so do not want to see.

"Look, just give them both a go and if neither work out, at least you tried." I told her gently and she sighed.

"I suppose. You're not going to hate me are you?"

"Hate you? Why?"

"I don't know. Bro's before ho's?"

I rolled my eyes at her.

"Jude, I could never hate you. Annoyed at you if you keep this up any longer without actually doing anything about the pair of them, but no, I could never hate you."

"Good." She looked relieved. "So how do I tell them that I agree to go along with this stupid agreement of theirs? And wait, how do I choose which one to go out with first? And…"

"How bout we both tell them because it was me after all who told you about it and I'm the referee for this whole thing. And for the who goes first, we'll stick their names into a hat and you can choose that way."

"You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?" Jude said sounding torn between being impressed and annoyed.

"Not as much as you might think." I replied, stretching my arms above my head.

"Thanks." She said, smiling at me.

"No problem. You helped me out, so, fairs fair."

"I know but still, thank you."

I shrugged.

"You do know I'm still going to be asking you on advice with Mia right?"

"Duh. I'd be worried if you didn't."

"So I help you with those two and you help me understand the mad minds of girls. Deal?" I held out my hand and she grasped in with a grin.

"Deal."

"So," she nudged me with a slight grin as we came to her apartment block, "you taking her to Prom?"

"What?"

She laughed as she entered her apartments lobby with me staring opened mouth after her.

Prom? What? Mia wouldn't want to go to the Prom…

Right?

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So basically this extra chapter was mainly to set up a few things for book 5, mainly where and how Michael came by getting Mia's snowflake necklace (Which by the way, the price of the necklace in this, is actually the price of silver snowflack necklace that I saw in a jewelry store a few weeks back (I know, my mouth completely dropped when I saw it. It looked exactly how I imagine Mia's snowflake necklace to look. I wanted to take a picture to show all of you, except that the shop assistants start glaring at me the moment I took out my phone, so sorry about that). Granted it was priced at Australian price, but still 'shrugs') and setting up the Jude, Paul and Felix triangle that is going to come to head some time during book 5 and also faintly hinting at Prom.  
>Overall, it's a filler chapter, a little boring because nothing much happens but it setting a few things up because there is such a wide gap between this book and the 5th.<br>Actually, I think it becomes like that after this book. I think only 8 and 9 are set side by side in the same months. 5,6,7 and 8 have huge gaps between them and obviously 9 and 10, there are years... hmmm, I'm predicting that this might be a pain when it comes to writing these books (Like the later ones weren't going to be hard enough to write already!). Book 5 is being hard to write because I don't know where to start, should I start where Mia Diary starts or have some M&M moments before that? But I'm working to figure that out. Tempted to just get on with the rest of the book and deal with the beginning later down the track.  
>Anyway, thank you so much to all my wonderful, loving readers. Without all of you, I would never have gotten this far in the PD series.<br>I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (Though I will be back before then, but lets keep with tradition, shall we.) to you all!  
>Bye for now!<p> 


	13. Author's Note: Hi Everyone

Hi Everyone  
>Hope you all had a great Christmas Day, that you all recieved wonderful presents and had a fantastic day with your family and friends.<br>I know I said that I would have uploaded the first chapter of 'The Fifth Note Of SkinnerBx' by now, but my life, for the past week, has been very hetic. As you all knew, I went away for awhile, to spend some quality time with my Dad, however I had to come back home early to help my Mum and step Dad take care of one of our baby ferrets (Yes, I have ferrets and many of them, lol). She was from a litter of four, born last saturday. Her Mummy dried up of milk on the Sunday, causing two of her fellow kits to die. My Mum and Dad tried to save her and her sister, however her tiny little sister died too. I came back home on Wednesday and from then on have basically had no sleep because we had to feed her every hour, on the hour. I thought that I would get quite a bit of writing done since I was staying up all night, however this turned out not to be the case.  
>Anyway, the little one we tried so desperately to save, died yesterday, and for us here in Oz, that was Christmas day. So yeah, I had a wonderful Christmas, sleep deprived and beside myself with grief over the lose of this baby ferret we worked so save.<br>I know it's seems silly to be so upset over the death of such a tiny little creature who only lived a week, but being there with her every hour of every day, watching her move about and squeaking and so on, you can't help but grow attached so that when she finally does pass away, you feel so absolutely gutted that all your hard work and love just wasn't enough to keep her alive. I know that she's now in a better place, with no more pain and so on, but that in truth, doesn't really make me feel any better.  
>Anyway, my point here is, I haven't written overly much of book 5, am only up to chapter 3, so I'm sorry to say and to ask if all of you could wait a little longer for it because I have been and still am too tired to write and in truth, with everything with the little girl plus everything else that is going on in my life at the moment, I haven't felt like writing either.<br>Thank you all for being so understanding and for being such a great group of people, filled with so much support and encouragement for my fics. If it weren't for you guys, I probably wouldn't even bother trying to write book 5, but I will, for all of you. So know, I haven't given up on writing it, I just need a little more time to, that's all.  
>Thank you all for understanding and I promise that I will be back soon and with 'Fifth Note of SkinnerBx' ready to go.<br>Bye for now and Happy New Year if I don't update before then.


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